The Caring Efficacy Scale: nurses' self-reports of caring in practice settings

Area of Science:

• Nursing
• Psychometrics
• Healthcare Education

Background:

• Assessing nurses' ability to express a caring orientation is crucial for quality patient care.
• Existing measures may not fully capture the nuances of caring efficacy in nursing practice.
• Understanding factors influencing caring efficacy, such as experience and education level, is important.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the development of the Caring Efficacy Scale (CES), a Likert-type self-report measure.
• To evaluate the preliminary reliability and validity of the CES in assessing nurses' caring efficacy.
• To explore differences in caring efficacy between novice and experienced nurses across different educational programs.

Main Methods:

• Development of the CES, a self-report Likert-type scale.
• Reliability testing using internal consistency measures.
• Validity assessment through correlation with a clinical competence measure.
• Comparative analysis of CES scores across different nurse experience levels and educational backgrounds (baccalaureate, master's, doctorate).

Main Results:

• The CES demonstrated high internal consistency, indicating reliability.
• The CES showed significant positive correlations with a measure of clinical competence.
• Preliminary data suggest potential differences in caring efficacy based on nursing experience and program type.

Conclusions:

• The CES is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring nurses' caring efficacy.
• The findings support the link between perceived caring efficacy and actual clinical competence in nurses.
• Further research is warranted to explore the implications of CES findings for nursing education and practice.