The development and psychometric evaluation of a nursing professional resilience scale in China

Professional resilience, rather than career resilience, is an important attribute for nurses’ retention in the profession. The concept of nursing professional resilience has just been clarified through a grounded theory study, but the evaluating scale was still lacking. To develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of a nursing professional resilience scale (NPRS). This study was conducted in accordance with DeVellis’s guidelines for scale development. The initial items were adopted from qualitative interviews and previous psychological/career resilience scales. The revised scale was tested via a sample of 479 nurses and refined through expert review and factor analysis. Content validity was evaluated by five experts; construct validity was explored through exploratory factor analysis and confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis. Convergent and discriminant validity were investigated, and reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s α coefficient, split-half reliability, and test-retest reliability. The final scale comprised 19 items distributed across five dimensions: positive personality traits (4 items), professional adaptability (3 items), interpersonal quotient (6 items), perceived support (3 items), and impervious to public opinion (3 items). Content validity was determined to be 0.98. The goodness-of-fit indices (χ2/df = 291.2/141, RMSEA = 0.071, NFI = 0.893, TLI = 0.929, CFI = 0.941, RFI = 0.870, IFI = 0.942) indicated a reasonable fit for the model. AVE values of the factors were calculated at between 0.563 and 0.684, CR2 values between 0.796 and 0.885 and MSV values between 0.754 and 0.825. The Cronbach’s α coefficient, split-half reliability coefficient, and test-retest reliability coefficient were 0.938, 0.885, and 0.946 for the overall scale. The Nursing Professional Resilience Scale exhibited good reliability and validity when applied to Chinese nurses. This study provides a valid measurement instrument for subsequent research related to nurses’ mental health, career development education, and resilience-related policy development in Chinese healthcare context. The external validity could be examined in future large-scale studies.