Development and validation of the Nursing Workplace Satisfaction Questionnaire (NWSQ).
A nursing job satisfaction questionnaire was designed by a project group of nurses seeking a suitable job satisfaction measure to track as an outcome in a large Sydney hospital-wide models of nursing care project. Existing tools were rejected by the group as overly lengthy, US-biased and over-using respondent assessment of the character of the work environment as a proxy for job satisfaction, or happiness at work. A one-page, 14-item tool was developed after instrument reviewing and facilitated groupwork. The tool reduces to three measurable domains: intrinsic, extrinsic and relational job satisfaction. Exploratory factor analysis (n = 220 responses) confirmed the validity of this 'three-way' conceptualisation of nursing job satisfaction. Internal consistency analysis on a larger sample of responses (n = 459) yielded high Cronbach's Alpha values for all three domains and for the total overall, suggesting a stable and reliable measure. The NWSQ is short, one page, sensibly worded for Australian conditions and yields scoring against three validated domains. It holds significant potential utility as a standard metric for prospective ward-based or institution-wide performance trending.
Nurse Manager Research & Clinical Policy, Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Greg
G
Fairbrother
Aaron
A
Jones
Ketty
K
Rivas
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D015982:Bias; D002055:Burnout, Professional / Q000523:psychology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D016294:Models, Nursing; D009517:New South Wales; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology; D009746:Nursing, Team; D016272:Occupational Health; D015279:Organizational Culture; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011594:Psychometrics; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D017132:Workplace / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000523:psychology