title: Nursing skill assessment within populations: scale development and testing.
abstract: This study examined the reliability and validity of an instrument to measure the skill level of registered nurses within an Australian state. Internal consistency and construct validity of the scale and subscales were investigated in a sample of 1223 registered nurses from varying practice areas. The scale consisted of 105 skills within 13 practice domains: nursing practice, professional practice, acute care, community and public health, rural and remote area nursing, service delivery, self-management, supervision, resource management, improving processes, training and development, research, and technology. Twelve subscales obtained reliability co-efficients of 0.85 or more, with one at 0.81. The 13 factors explained 64.5 per cent of the cumulative variance, adequately capturing the concept of nursing skill. This scale, and its subscales, represent valid and reliable tools for the assessment and monitoring of skill levels in a population of nurses, within some limitation.
authors.affiliation: Home Research Centre, School of Nursing, Family and Community Health, University of Western Sydney.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Marsden
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Day
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D002983:Clinical Competence; D006801:Humans; D009730:Nursing Assessment; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D016730:Program Development; D015203:Reproducibility of Results