Psychometric Testing of the Quality of Nursing Work Life Scale: Thai Version

Abstract

Objective: The Brooks Quality of Nursing Work Life Survey has been widely used to assess the quality of nursing work life. In Thailand, this scale was translated and used by nurse practitioners. However, many items designed for use have contextual differences from the hospital and have never been tested for their construct; including issues of cultural differences. Therefore, such a scale must be revised. This study aimed to translate and test the psychometric properties to justify its use in a hospital context.Material and Methods: This was methodological research. The process consisted of two phases; including: 1) translation using the forward-backward translation method, and 2) psychometric properties testing; content validity, cognitive interview, construct validity, and reliability would be used to evaluate psychometric properties. Content validity was considered by a panel of experts. Ten registered nurses were asked to participate in a cognitive interview. Two hundred and fourteen registered nurses were recruited, using convenience sampling for conducting the construct validity and reliability testing.Results: The findings revealed excellent content validity. Twenty-three items were revised in the phase of cognitive interviews. Internal consistency was calculated: Cronbach’s alpha was 0.959. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded four factors, and was consistent with the original version.Conclusion: The scale may be utilized by registered nurses working in Thailand’s hospital context to assess the quality of nursing work life. Further study needs to test this in larger and heterogeneous samples.