Measuring hospital nurses’ well-being at work – psychometric testing of the scale

Abstract

Background: Valid and reliable methods to measure nurses’ well-being at work are needed. Well-being at work refers to a positive viewpoint and experience in a work context. Aim: The aim of this study is to test the psychometric properties of nurses’ well-being at work-scale (NWB-scale). Method: The NWB-scale was tested in a Finnish hospital (N = 233) using statistical methods. Results: The NWB-scale consists of 67 items and 12 factors: patients’ experience of high-quality care, assistance and support among nurses, nurses’ togetherness and collaboration, satisfying practical organization of work, challenging and meaningful work, freedom to express diverse feelings in a work community, well-conducted everyday nursing, status related to the work itself, fair and supportive leadership, opportunities for professional development, fluent communication with other professionals, and being together with other nurses in an informal way. Content validity was good based on expert evaluations. Construct validity of the scale was also very good based on exploratory factor analysis. Reliability (internal consistency) was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, which ranged from 0.66 to 0.91. Conclusions: Based on psychometric properties, NWB is a valid and reliable scale to measure hospital nurses’ well-being at work. Extrapolation to other professionals and settings needs required modification and careful testing.

Keywords:

• well-being at work
• nurses
• hospitals
• scale
• psychometrics

Acknowledgements

We thank biostatistician (M.Sc. Statistics) Jari Jokelainen (Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu) for statistical expertise.