Development of a patient safety care activity scale for clinical nurses in Korea

The aim of this study was to develop a scale to measure patient safety care activities for clinical nurses and to verify validity and reliability it.

Literature review and expert consultation were utilized to develop the scale of the Patient Safety Care Activities. The validity and reliability analyses were conducted with 428 nurses working at 5 general hospitals. Exploratory factor analysis of the scale was performed, and convergent and discriminant validity as well as internal consistency reliability were determined.

Eight subcategories (security, patient identification, operation (invasive procedure), medication, blood transfusion, management of infection, management of falls & sores, management of firefighting) with 44 items were validated to measure patient safety care activities. Convergent and discriminant validity indicated the applicability of the eight-factor Patient Safety Care Activities scale. The reliability of the Patient Safety Care Activities Scale was acceptable, with Cronbach's a = .88 ~ .95.

The developed scale showed content, construct validity, and reliability, as well as convergent validity for each item and discriminant validity between the factors. This makes it suitable for use in a diverse range of future studies on patient safety care activity.