Professional Governance Scale: Instrument Development and Content Validity Testing

Measuring Professional Governance: The Swedish Version of the Verran Professional Governance Scale©

OBJECTIVE

To translate the Verran Professional Governance Scale© (VPGS©) into Swedish, adapt it to the Swedish context, and validate it.

BACKGROUND

Magnet®-recognized hospitals have proven successful in reversing negative trends regarding nursing shortage. A change in organizational and management structures is required, and professional governance is fundamental. However, in a Swedish context, there are no validated instruments to measure professional governance.

METHODS

The instrument was translated from English to Swedish and synthesized into a unified version. It was back translated, discussed in an expert panel, and pilot tested with cognitive interviews of nurses.

RESULTS

A new Swedish version of the VPGS© was developed. The expert group reached a consensus, and the scale-level Content Validity Index value shows high relevance. Some words and sentences were revised, and an introduction was added.

CONCLUSIONS

The study generated a Swedish version of the VPGS©, which can be used to measure nurses' perceptions of professional governance behaviors.

The perception of shared governance and engagement in decision-making among nurses

BACKGROUND

Shared governance is a structural framework for operationalizing nursing ownership and accountability for nursing practice. Healthcare institutions are striving to promote healthy and satisfactory work conditions to retain their qualified personnel and achieve organizational stability and high care quality. However, little is known about nurses' participation in governance in developing countries.

AIM

This study aims to evaluate the levels of shared governance, also known as professional governance, among nurses in Jordan. The demographics of the study participants will also be assessed.

METHODS

The current study used a cross-sectional design implementing an anonymous online survey technique to collect data from 111 nurses on the Index of Professional Nursing Governance (IPNG). Descriptive statistics were performed to evaluate the nurses' perception of the concept of shared governance in the domains of personnel, information, resources, participation goals and conflict resolution, and practice.

RESULTS

Among the 111 nurses, 55% of the participants were females, 45.5% were affiliated with governmental hospitals, and about half of them worked in critical care units. The analysis showed that the mean score for the total IPNG was 113 (SD = 26.28). The analyses of the mean scores of IPNG domains ranged from 11.5 (SD = 4.6) for goals and conflict resolution to 23.8 (SD = 5.7) for access to information.

DISCUSSION

The results revealed that nurses' average perception of professional governance demonstrated shared governance, and more specifically, in the lower level of shared governance where decisions are made primarily by management with some staff input. Analysis of the domains of governance revealed that participants' scores corresponded with shared governance in the areas of information, resources, goals and conflict, and practice, while traditional governance was prevalent in the governance of nursing personnel and participation.

CONCLUSION

There is an agreement on the need of moving the position of frontline nurses to the center of their organizations where equity, accountability, and ownership are the pillars of participative governance. Frontline nurses need further empowerment to be more actively engaged especially in the management of nursing staff and related structures and in the participation in structures connected to governance activities at different organizational levels such as in committees.

The Verran Professional Governance Scale: Confirmatory and Exploratory Analysis

This article describes psychometric testing and refinement of the Verran Professional Governance Scale (VPGS), which measures behaviors associated with professional governance. Phase 1 reduced the items on the scale based on floor and ceiling effects and redundancy of items. Phase 2 examined structural construct validity using exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The final 22-item instrument demonstrates satisfactory internal consistencies and fit indices and significant positive correlation between the VPGS, job satisfaction, and control over nursing practice.

Professional governance in Finnish nursing - measured by the Index of Professional Nursing Governance

AIM

To translate and validate the Index of Professional Nursing Governance (IPNG) 2.0 and assess the state of professional nursing governance in Finland.

BACKGROUND

Raising and maintaining quality of care while retaining staff are common problems in healthcare globally. Professional governance is a modern way to tackle them, but a reliable instrument is needed to measure the state of nursing governance in Finland, and elsewhere.

METHODS

The IPNG that was translated into Finnish by forward-backward translation, culturally adapted and pilot tested with 20 nurses. A sample of 419 nurses was utilised in a cross-sectional study to assess the state of professional governance in Finland 2018.

RESULTS

Principal component analysis yielded six components with good Cronbach's α values. The results clearly indicate that the IPNG version developed and evaluated in this study has suitable psychometric properties for use in Finnish healthcare settings. The validated IPNG scores indicate that nursing governance in Finland is in the professional governance range. The staff have some input in the governance of Finnish healthcare organisations. However, this perception is strongest among the nurse leaders and experts; other groups do not perceive much change yet.

CONCLUSION

Participants, particularly nurse leaders in Finland, had self-reported impact in decision-making. The translated IPNG has acceptable internal consistency and can be used to assess healthcare organisations' governance models in Finland and broader in Nordic countries and Europe.