title: [Development of a scale to measure career orientation in public health nurses working in Japanese administrative agencies and relationships with demographic characteristics].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to develop a career-orientation scale for public health nurses (PHNs) working in local government agencies in Japan, and to examine the relationships of the scale with PHNs' demographic characteristics.
  
  
  METHODS
  Self-administered questionnaires were mailed to 7,170 PHNs in 10 prefectures. Items for the scale were determined by conducting a principal factor analysis using varimax rotation. Reliability was examined by calculating a cumulative contribution ratio and a Cronbach's alpha coefficient. A second survey was performed with participants who had given the relevant consent.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For the first questionnaire, we received replies from 2,065 PHNs (28.8%), of whom 2,003 (97.0%) provided valid responses. For the second questionnaire, we received valid responses from 222 out of the 252 participants. Five orientation factors were selected, managerial, engagement, service, professional, and stability, along with 19 items. The cumulative contribution ratio was 46.9% and the Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was 0.863. The average exact match ratio for the responses from the first and second questionnaires was 59.7% (each item; 47.7-72.10%, each participant; 12.0-92.0%). Multiple regression analysis extracted the following four autonomous variables: experience of start-up of organization-making, presence of a role model, cooperative family, and years of experience as PHN (R2 = 0.052).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results indicate that the number of factors and items in our scale was appropriate for simple self-assessment. High values for factor loadings and reliability coefficients indicate a high intrinsic consistency. However, reproducibility requires further investigation, because the average exact match ratio of each participant greatly varied from individual to individual.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Health Sciences, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine.
authors.forename: Mika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Okura
authors.forename: Chizuko
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Noro
authors.forename: Mihoko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ogita
authors.forename: Hidenori
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Arai
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006077:Government Agencies; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D011637:Public Health Nursing; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012380:Role; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires