Validation and Psychometric Assessment of the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index in the Portuguese Hospital Context.

BACKGROUND The nursing work environment has an impact on patient safety outcomes and its measurement should be a regular practice. PURPOSE To assess the reliability and construct validity of the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index in the Portuguese context. METHODS An exploratory factor analysis followed by a confirmatory factor analysis to assess model adjustment quality was performed with a sample of 3,686 nurses. RESULTS The final solution for the exploratory factor analysis comprised 26 items and five factors (56.6% of the total variance). The confirmatory factor analysis, after refinement, showed a stable factor structure. CONCLUSIONS The final model showed good construct validity and high reliability, which supports the decision to exclude the items that are not essential to the construct being measured.