Turkish Adaptation and Psychometric Characteristics of the Nurse Professional Competence Scale-Short Version Among Nursing Students: Methodological Study.

AIM: This study aimed to adapt the Nurse Professional Competence Scale-Short Form (NPC-SF) into Turkish and evaluate its validity and reliability study for nursing students. DESIGN: A methodological study was designed. METHODS: The study was conducted with 181 senior nursing students using a convenience sampling method from March 2021 to November 2021. Language adaptation was conducted using translation and back-translation. Content validity was assessed using expert approval. Construct validity was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis. Convergent and discriminant validity were applied. Reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, the test-retest reliability and Bland-Altman Method. RESULTS: The mean Content Validity Index of the items in the total scale was 0.98. Confirmatory factor analysis identified 21 items, which could be categorised under five factors (Nursing Care, Value-based Nursing Care, Medical and Technical Care, Documentation and Administration of Nursing Care, Development, Leadership and Organization of Nursing Care). The scale preserved its original structure, but one sub-dimension (Care Pedagogy) was removed from the scale. The fit indices of TR-NPC-SF are χ2/SD 1.928, GFI 0.928, NFI 0.964, NNFI 0.956, CFI 0.964, RMSEA 0.072 and SRMR 0.040. The five-factor model achieved a good fit according to confirmatory factor analysis. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of the Turkish version of the NPC-SF (TR-NPC-SF) was 0.974. CONCLUSION: TR-NPC-SF is a valid and reliable tool with good psychometric properties. This scale can be used to evaluate nursing students' self-assessed professional competence. Nurse managers and educators can also use TR-NPC-SF to improve nurses' competence and identify their competence gaps. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: No patient or public contribution.