Development and validation of a short form instrument for the evaluation of Quality of Working Live of nurses in hospitals

Abstract

This study aims to develop a short form of an instrument to assess the Quality of Working Life (QWL) of hospital nurses and to evaluate its reliability and validity. The study was developed with a probabilistic sample of 348 nurses enrolled in four hospitals in Sao Paulo city, Brazil. Clinimetric and psychometric methods were used for the items reduction resulting in an instrument with 31 items and four domains: Institutional valorization and recognition; Working conditions, security and salary; Identity and professional image and Integration with the team. Internal consistency analysis showed Cronbach's alpha coefficients of 0.94 for the total items and 0.77 to 0.92 for the domains. These results and those obtained in the analysis of convergent, criterion and discriminant validity suggest that the reduced instrument is suitable for the measurement of QWL of nurses in hospitals.