The supportive supervisory scale: psychometric properties in Chinese health care aides samples

OBJECTIVE: To sinicize the Supportive Supervisory Scale (SSS) and analyze the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of SSS (SSS-C). METHODS: The SSS (the original English version) was firstly sinicized and adjusted, then its psychometric properties were examined in 300 health care aides from four long-term care (LTC) facilities. SPSS 22.0 was used to process the data and calculate the reliability and validity. RESULTS: The 15-item SSS-C had satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach’s α coefficient = 0.852), split half reliability (Spearman-Brown coefficient = 0.834) and test–retest reliability (Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.784), and three factors were extracted. If the four items with their communality < 0.4 were deleted, the remaining 11 items could explain 55.654% of the total variance. The discriminant validity of the SSS-C varied significantly between sites. CONCLUSIONS: The Chinese version of SSS can be used to effectively measure the supervisory support of the nurses within the LTC settings.