title: Scales for assessing self-efficacy of nurses and assistants for preventing falls.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This paper is a report of the development and testing of the Self-Efficacy for Preventing Falls Nurse and Assistant scales.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Patient falls and fall-related injuries are traumatic ordeals for patients, family members and providers, and carry a toll for hospitals. Self-efficacy is an important factor in determining actions persons take and levels of performance they achieve. Performance of individual caregivers is linked to the overall performance of hospitals. Scales to assess nurses and certified nursing assistants' self-efficacy to prevent patients from falling would allow for targeting resources to increase SE, resulting in improved individual performance and ultimately decreased numbers of patient falls.
  
  
  METHODS
  Four phases of instrument development were carried out to (1) generate individual items from eight focus groups (four each nurse and assistant conducted in October 2007), (2) develop prototype scales, (3) determine content validity during a second series of four nurse and assistant focus groups (January 2008) and (4) conduct item analysis, paired t-tests, Student's t-tests and internal consistency reliability to refine and confirm the scales. Data were collected during February-December, 2008.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The 11-item Self-Efficacy for Preventing Falls Nurse had an alpha of 0·89 with all items in the range criterion of 0·3-0·7 for item total correlation. The 8-item Self-Efficacy for Preventing Falls Assistant had an alpha of 0·74 and all items had item total correlations in the 0·3-0·7 range.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Self-Efficacy for Preventing Falls Nurse and Self-Efficacy for Preventing Falls Assistant scales demonstrated psychometric adequacy and are recommended to measure bedside staff's self-efficacy beliefs in preventing patient falls.
authors.affiliation: Nursing Informatics and Research Clinical Informatics Research and Development, Partners HealthCare System, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. pdykes@partners.org
authors.forename: Patricia C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Dykes
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Carroll
authors.forename: Kerry
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: McColgan
authors.forename: Ann C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Hurley
authors.forename: Stuart R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Lipsitz
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Colombo
authors.forename: Lyubov
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zuyev
authors.forename: Blackford
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Middleton
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000517:prevention & control*; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002983:Clinical Competence; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D019983:Guideline Adherence / Q000592:standards; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007297:Inpatients; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009728:Nursing Assistants / Q000523:psychology; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D017751:Safety Management / Q000379:methods; D020377:Self Efficacy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*