Developing and Validating the Scale of Organizational Support Needs for Nurses Returning to Work After Childbirth

Aims: To describe the development and testing of the psychometric properties of the scale of organizational support needs for nurses returning to work after childbirth. Design: Instrument development and validation. Methods: The study was divided into three steps: the first step involved developing items using qualitative descriptive research and literature review to form an item pool of the scale; the second step entailed modifying the items through Delphi expert consultation, content validity, and a presurvey to create the draft of the scale; and the third step was to adjust the dimensions through exploratory factor analysis and confirmation factor analysis to form the final scale and evaluate its psychometric properties. Data were collected from August 2022 to May 2025. Results: The scale consisted of 14 items across three dimensions: manager support, work condition support, and colleague support. The content validity index at the item level ranged from 0.83 to 1.00, and the average content validity index at the scale level was 0.92. Three factors were revealed using the exploratory factor analysis, which accounted for 72.912% of the variance. Cronbach's alpha was 0.939 for the total scale and 0.871 to 0.920 for the three dimensions. The Spearman-Brown coefficient was 0.908 for the total scale and 0.872 to 0.922 for the three dimensions. The structural equation modeling showed a good model fit, confirming construct validity (χ ²/df = 1.0673, RMSEA = 0.0180, SRMR = 0.0351, CFI = 0.9969, TLI = 0.9962). The scale developed in this study is valid and reliable enough to be used widely. Conclusions: The scale of organizational support needs for nurses returning to work after childbirth demonstrates good psychometric properties and can be used to assess the organizational support needs of nurses returning to work.