Assessment of Psychometric properties of Clinical Competence Self-Assessment Tool (CCSAT)

Abstract

Introduction: The healthcare sector is very complex. Presently there is shortage of nurses and the hospitals tend to recruit new graduate nurses to work in critical and intensive care units. The baccalaureate study equips a nursing student with theoretical knowledge and fundamental nursing skills. There is still a challenge to promote nursing student’s competence before they acquire their nursing degree. Nurse competence has been assessed in past, few have estimated it at the point of completion of nursing degree. In India too there is a scarcity of data and so far no tool developed or modified to assess the same. Purpose of the current study is to assess reliability and validity of a newly developed “Clinical Competence Self Assessment Tool” which measures perceived clinical competence in terms of professional behavior, knowledge and skills. Aim: To establish reliability and validity of CCSAT. Materials and Methods: The present paper assesses CCSAT try out results on a sample of 410 upcoming nursing graduates from 09 randomly selected nursing colleges of western Uttar Pradesh. A cross sectional descriptive survey design was done to collect the data. Factor analysis was used to analyze the results. Results: The data was found suitable for factor analysis. All subscales achieved reliability with reliability coefficient value of > 0.83. Post factor analysis all the 19 items were retained in professional behavior subscale and one item each were reduced from Knowledge and skills subscale. Conclusion: Final CCSAT, post try out on a sample of 410 upcoming graduates CCSAT contained total 90 items. The reliability and validity of the tool was also ascertained.