Development of an Individual and Organizational Readiness Assessment Scale for Public Health Nurses’ Decision-Making to Address Child Neglect

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to develop the Individual and Organizational Readiness Assessment Scale for Public Health Nurses’ Decision-making to Address Child Neglect and examine its reliability and validity.

Methods: The study developed a scale draft using a literature review and public health nurses’ opinions. A 47-item, 5-point Likert-type questionnaire was administered to public health nurses engaged in maternal and children’s health and child and family welfare in Japan. In total 359 valid responses were included in the analysis.

Results: Regarding the goodness-of-fit indices of the final model of the confirmatory factor analysis, they were as follows: GFI = .952, AGFI = .931, CFI = .967, and RMSEA = .046. The scale comprises four 15-item factors, namely ‘Individual public health nurse values and attitudes’, ‘Individual public health nurse skills’, ‘Perceptions and relationships within the workplace’, and ‘Perceptions of and relationships with related agencies. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the overall scale was .871, and the coefficient for criterion-related validity was .465.

Conclusion: The analysis confirmed the rating scale’s reliability and validity. The scale can be used to assess the readiness of individual public health nurses and organizations to make decisions for addressing neglect.