Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric validation of the Chinese version of career success in nursing scale (CSNS)

OBJECTIVE: To translate the career success in nursing scale (CSNS) into Chinese and evaluate its psychometric properties. BACKGROUND: A lower sense of career success seriously affects the enthusiasm of nurses and increases their turnover rate. Therefore, an accurate assessment of the career success level of nurses is necessary. However, China does not have a professional tool for assessing the career success of nurses. METHODS: The stratified sampling method was used to recruit participants from 22 hospitals of different grades in 5 cities in China. A total of 650 and 348 subjects were selected for item analysis and reliability and validity tests, respectively, of the translated initial scale. RESULTS: The Chinese version of the CSNS (C-CSNS) with 33 items had good psychometric properties. Cronbach’s α was 0.960, split-half reliability was 0.893, and ICC within two weeks was 0.981. Exploratory factor analysis extracted 5 common factors that explained 63.73% of the total variance, and confirmatory factor analysis supported acceptable construct validity. CONCLUSION: The C-CSNS has adequate construct validity and excellent psychometric properties and can be used for accurate assessment of nurses’ career success. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT: A new tool that is more suitable for the Chinese hospital nursing context is available for evaluating Chinese clinical nurses’ career success. Nursing managers can formulate appropriate management strategies according to the evaluation results to assist nurses in career development planning, thereby improving their career success level.