Development and Validation of an Entrustable Professional Activity-Based Assessment Scale for Nurse Practitioners in...

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Healthcare Professional Assessment

Background:

• Competency-based education is crucial for training nurse practitioners (NPs).
• A validated assessment scale is needed to evaluate NP clinical competencies in acute care settings using entrustable professional activities (EPAs).

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate an EPA-based assessment scale for evaluating NP clinical competencies.

Main Methods:

• A psychometric study involving a cross-sectional survey with NP instructors and novice NPs.
• Development of five EPAs through focus groups and Delphi study, followed by content validation.
• Reliability (Cronbach's alpha, ICC) and validity (EFA, concurrent, discriminant) analyses were performed.

Main Results:

• A 22-item EPA-based assessment scale was developed, demonstrating high reliability (Cronbach's alpha = .95).
• The scale identified two key factors: direct patient-centered care and communication/time management.
• The scale showed strong concurrent validity with the Ottawa Clinic Assessment Tool and significant discriminant validity between novice and expert NPs.

Conclusions:

• The developed EPA-based assessment scale is reliable and valid for evaluating NP clinical competencies.
• This novel tool supports the assessment of NP performance in acute care settings.