Understanding and measuring nurses' professionalism: Development and validation of the Nurses' Professionalism Inventory.

AIMS To develop a self-report assessment inventory to evaluate nurses' professionalism and test its validity and reliability. BACKGROUND Professionalism is essential for nurses' development. To promote professionalism, evaluation indices must be developed. METHODS The Nurses' Professionalism Inventory (NPI) was constructed through a literature review and interviews with expert nurses and other medical personnel. An anonymized cross-sectional survey that included this inventory was administered to 5,739 nurses in hospitals throughout Japan. RESULTS A total of 4,183 (72.8%) questionnaires were returned, of which 3,655 (63.7%) with valid responses were used for further analyses. The Nurses' Professionalism Inventory consists of five subscales containing 28 items: (1) accountability, (2) self-improvement, (3) professional attitude, (4) advancement of the nursing profession, and (5) professional membership. The internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha) ranged from 0.84 to 0.90. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that this five-factor structure had good fit. The test-retest intraclass correlations were consistently greater than 0.6. CONCLUSIONS The Nurses' Professionalism Inventory is valid and reliable. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT The Nurses' Professionalism Inventory could be used to evaluate changes in nurses' professionalism and programs designed to promote nurses' professionalism.