Development and validation of the biosafety incident response competence scale for clinical nursing staff

Abstract

Aims: This study aimed to develop the biosafety incident response competence scale and evaluate its validity and reliability among clinical nurses. Design: A scale development and validation study was completed in the following three phases: (1) the construction of a multidimensional conceptual model, (2) the preliminary exploration of the items, and (3) further exploration and evaluation of the items. Methods: The multidimensional conceptual model was developed through a literature review and the Delphi method. A total of 1,712 clinical nurses participated in the preliminary item exploration, while 1,027 clinical nurses were involved in the further item evaluation from July 2023 to August 2023. The item analysis, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted to evaluate the construct validity. The reliability was measured by internal consistency, split-half reliability and test–retest reliability. Results: The final scale is composed of 4 factors and 29 items, scored on a 5-point scale. The factors included monitoring and warning abilities, nursing disposal abilities, biosafety knowledge preparedness, and infection protection abilities. The explanatory variance of the 4 factors was 75.100%. The validity and reliability of the scale are well validated. The internal consistency, split-half reliability and test-retest reliability were 0.974, 0.945 and 0.840 respectively. The scale has good structural validity and content validity. The content validity was 0.866. Conclusions: The biosafety incident response competence scale for nurses exhibits satisfactory reliability and validity, making it a valuable tool for assessing clinical nurses' abilities in responding to biosafety incidents. Patient or Public Contribution: Clinical nurses participated in the exploration and evaluation of the nurse's biosafety incident response competence scale.