Development of a Performance Scale for Nurses in Community-Based Long-Term Care Facilities in Taiwan

BACKGROUND: There is a lack of reliable and valid performance assessments for nurses in long-term care facilities in Taiwan. PURPOSE: This study develops a performance assessment instrument for nurses working in long-term care facilities. METHODS: A participatory action research approach was used to validate the performance assessment instrument. After 19 experts evaluated the results from the focus groups, field testing of the instrument was carried out among 190 nurses working in long-term care facilities. Factor analysis was employed to establish the construct validity of the scale. RESULTS: The final scale consisted of 11 categories with 69 items. The overall scale reliability had a Cronbach's alpha of .98, and the values of the Cronbach's alphas for the various categories ranged from .84 to .97. CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The performance scale evaluated in this article has acceptable reliability, content validity, and construct validity. This scale can be used as an objective tool for measuring the performance of nurses working in long-term care settings.