Development and psychometric testing of an instrument to measure applicants’ desire to work in nursing

Background Nursing applicants’ desire to work in nursing has been identified as an important aspect to consider in nursing student selection, but relevant instruments are missing.Aims To describe the development and psychometric testing of the Desire to Work in Nursing instrument.Design A mixed-methods design.Methods The development phase included the collection and analysis of two types of data. First, three focus group interviews were organised with volunteer nursing applicants (n = 18) after the entrance exams of three universities of applied sciences (UAS) (in 2016). The interviews were analysed inductively. Second, scoping review data from four electronic databases were collected. Thirteen full-text articles (published between 2008 and 2019) were included in the review and analysed deductively based on the results of the focus group interviews. The items for the instrument were generated by synthesising the results of the focus group interviews and the scoping review. The testing phase included 841 nursing applicants who participated in the entrance exams of four UAS on 31 October 2018. The psychometric properties were analysed by examining internal consistency reliability and construct validity by principal component analysis (PCA).Results The desire to work in nursing was classified into four categories: nature of the work, career opportunities, suitability for nursing and previous experiences. The internal consistency reliability of the four subscales was satisfactory. The PCA found only one factor with an eigenvalue over one, explaining 76% of the total variance.Conclusions The instrument can be considered reliable and valid. Although theoretically the instrument contains four categories, a one-factor solution should be considered in the future.Impact statement Evaluation of applicants’ desire to work in nursing may provide a strategy to retain students.Plain Language summary Individuals choose the nursing profession for variety of reasons. However, there is very little understanding of why nursing applicants desire to work in nursing. With the current challenges in the adequate staffing in the nursing workforce, it is important to understand any aspects that may be associated with student recruitment and retention. In this study, it was identified that nursing applicants desire to work in nursing because of the nature of the work, career opportunities, being suitable for nursing and of previous experiences. Instrument to measure this desire was developed and tested. The tests revealed that the instrument can be used reliably in this context. It is suggested that the developed instrument could be used as a pre-screening or self-assessment tool before applying to nursing education to provide further insights to applicants about their reasons for applying and an opportunity to reflect on their decision.