Assessing nurses’ competencies: a validation study of the Nurse Competence Scale

Introduction Defining and assessing nurse competencies is a crucial challenge to define professional standards, to ensure quality of care and to promote health systems’ sustainability. The Nurse Competence Scale (NCS) was translated and culturally adapted to the Italian context but its validity and reliability were tested on small samples of nurses. The aim of this study is to integrate available data on NCS validity and reliability through a multicenter cross-sectional survey. Methods The study was two-stage conducted: the first stage was aimed to assess NCS face and content validity involving a panel of recognized experts; the second one tested internal consistency and test-retest reliability involving a sample of 235 nurses working in three hospitals in Lombardy (North of Italy). Results Based on 15 experts evaluations, NCS showed overall good face and content validity. However, a small number of items showed a low content validity ratio due to the use of terms considered ambiguous in the Italian cultural context. Study results showed high internal consistency and high stability of the NCS (Cronbach alpha between 0,93 and 0,97; concordance correlation coefficient between 0,90 and 0,94; respondent rate of 78%). Conclusions Results show that NCS face and content validity could be improved by the use of operational definitions of potentially ambiguous terminologies. NCS could have useful application in educational, organizational, clinical and research settings in Italy. Furthermore, a wider use of NCS could enrich the actual national debate on the definition of registered and advanced practice nurses’ competencies