Assessment of the Roles of Critical Care Nurses: Tool Development, Psychometric Properties, and Nurses' Perceptions

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Critical Care Medicine
• Health Sciences

Background:

• Critical care nursing is a demanding specialty involving high-stress environments and acutely ill patients.
• Nurses in intensive care units (ICUs) perform vital functions including assessment, medication administration, and life-saving interventions.
• Existing assessment tools for critical care nurses' role perception are limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a tool assessing critical care nurses' knowledge, awareness, and perception of their roles and responsibilities in ICUs.
• To evaluate the psychometric properties of the developed tool.

Main Methods:

• The Critical Care Nurses' Roles and Responsibilities Assessment Tool was developed.
• Content validity was assessed by five nursing experts (Content Validity Index [CVI] = 0.93).
• The tool was administered to 120 registered nurses in ICUs across 9 Jordanian governmental hospitals; reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha (0.912).

Main Results:

• The developed tool demonstrated high content validity and reliability.
• A substantial majority of nurses (91%) showed a high level of agreement with the identified roles and responsibilities.
• Only 9% of participants demonstrated a moderate level of agreement.

Conclusions:

• The Critical Care Nurses' Roles and Responsibilities Assessment Tool is a valid and reliable instrument.
• The tool effectively measures critical care nurses' perceptions of their roles.
• Findings indicate a high level of agreement among nurses regarding their critical care responsibilities.