Psychometric evaluation of the Arabic version of the higher education inventory scale for nursing students

BACKGROUND: Studies in the literature have relied on a single instrument to assess stress levels and sources among nursing students in Jordan and in other Arab countries. Thus, there is a need to develop Arabic versions of psychometrically validated instruments for evaluating a wider range of aspects related to stress and stressors. The Higher Education Stress Inventory (HESI) is an instrument used to assess various aspects of stress and stressors related to higher education in different educational settings and among different student populations. To date, no exploratory or confirmatory factor analyses have been conducted to study the factor structure of the Arabic version of the HESI. Therefore, the current study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the HESI (Arabic-HESI) among nursing students in Jordan. METHODS: The structure of the instrument was tested using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and maximum likelihood estimation among a sample of 355 nursing students at five Jordanian universities. RESULTS: The Arabic-HESI proved to have excellent content validity index (CVI = 0.92). The instrument showed good internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.75), as well as for the two emerged factors “challenges” and “dissatisfaction” (Cronbach’s α were 0.75, 0.72 respectively). The results support the two-factor model for the Arabic-HESI, as the instrument was found to have robust structure and acceptable goodness-of-fit indices. CONCLUSION: The Arabic-HESI is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing stress levels and stressors among nursing students in Jordan. Using the shortened version of the HESI to assess stress among nursing students is recommended. Identifying new features of stress and stressors among nursing students in Jordan will enable universities and nursing faculties to better support their students.