Development and Psychometric Testing of the Thai-Patient Safety Competency Scale for New Graduate Nurses

Abstract

Registered nurses must possess patient safety expertise regardless of their level. However, patient safety skills are the most crucial competency for new graduate nurses, which they must accomplish before working autonomously. Nevertheless, assessing these competencies is difficult due to the need for quality assessment tools to improve their competence in providing safe care. This study aimed to develop and test the Thai-Patient Safety Competency Scale for new graduate nurses, according to Thailand Nursing and Midwifery requirements. A descriptive design with two phases and eight steps was applied. The new instrument was examined for construct validity, known-group validity, and internal consistency reliability using factor analysis, t-test, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The sample comprised ten experts, 403 new graduate nurses, and 56 registered nurses. The results showed 58 items composed of eight domains: ethical and legal aspects of patient safety, nursing practices to prevent or minimize harm from healthcare errors, professional characteristics regarding patient safety, risk management and quality improvement, academic and research skills regarding patient safety, effective communication in healthcare teams, use of technology and informatics for patient safety, and policy and networks regarding patient safety. This Thai-Patient Safety Competency Scale had good construct validity. In addition, the tool could discriminate the patient safety competency between new and experienced graduate nurses. It had good internal consistency and reliability. Thus, it can be used to assess and train new graduate nurses to increase their competency for patient safety. However, the scale needs further testing with different groups of nurses.