Development and validation of an evaluation tool for nurse interns’ performance

Abstract

Evaluation is an innate component of any internship program. The availability of a valid and reliable performance appraisal tool is urgently needed as a cornerstone in the process of interns’ evaluation. This methodological study was aimed at developing and validating an evaluation tool for nurse interns’ performance. It was carried out at Ain-Shams University Hospitals and involved a jury group and nurse interns. The researchers developed the proposed tool based on pertinent literature to evaluate the performance of nurse interns in their training areas. It had three sections covering professional behavior, professional performance, and communications skills. The tool was presented to the jury group for face and content validation. The acceptance level of any item was set at 70% or higher. Exploratory factor analysis was used to assess its construct validity. The results indicated high jury agreement upon the original items, with strong statistically significant positive inter-rater (r=0.940) and intra-rater (r=0.850) correlations for the total scale. The factor analysis showed a significant fit the original model, with high loadings of items upon the three factors, the lowest being 0.570. The scale explains 69.780% of the total variance of performance. The scores of the three factors had very high reliability with high Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, reaching 0.93 for the professional behavior factor. Hence, Conclusion a valid and reliable tool was designed for the evaluation of nurse interns’ performance covering the three main dimensions relevant to nurse interns’ practice. It is recommended to use the tool in the study settings Further studies are suggested to assess the convergent and predictive validity of the tool.