Development and psychometric testing of nurses’ professional commitment inventory

Background: Promotion of nurses’ professional commitment is one of the strategies for retaining nurses and preventing their turnover. The aim of this study was the development and psychometric testing of the Nurses’ Professional Commitment Inventory. Methods: This mixed method study was performed in an item generation and a psychometric testing phase. In the first phase, a 34-item inventory was developed based on the results of a grounded theory and the existing literature. Search date was 2010 to May 2018. In the second phase, we recruited 272 clinical nurses and tested the psychometric properties of the inventory. Construct validity was tested via the exploratory factor analysis. Reliability testing was performed through test-retest stability and internal consistency testing. SPSS version 21.0 (SPPS Corp) was used for statistical analysis. Significance level was set at p<0.05. Results: In the first phase, a 74-item pull was extracted. After reviewing, the primary version of the Nurses’ Professional Commitment Inventory (NPCI) with 34 items was developed. Eight items were deleted during psychometric testing. In factor analysis, the remaining 26 items were loaded on 3 factors, namely professional attachment, professional performance, and internalization of the profession. These factors explained 53.92% of the total variance of professional commitment. The Cronbach’s alpha and mean test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient for NPCI were 0.92 and 0.88, respectively. Conclusion: The Nurses’ Professional Commitment Inventory has acceptable validity and reliability. This inventory includes dimensions that indicate the formation of professional commitment. The items of the scale can reveal nurses’ strengths and weaknesses related to professional commitment.