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. 2020 Jan 19;17(2):649.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17020649.

Development of the Nurses' Occupational Stressor Scale

Yi-Chuan Chen  1 , Yue-Liang Leon Guo  2   3 , Li-Chan Lin  4 , Yu-Ju Lee  1 , Pei-Yi Hu  5 , Jiune-Jye Ho  5 , Judith Shu-Chu Shiao  1   6   7
Affiliations

Development of the Nurses' Occupational Stressor Scale

Yi-Chuan Chen et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Although nurses work in stressful environments, stressors in such environments have yet to be clearly assessed. This study aimed to develop a Nurses' Occupational Stressor Scale (NOSS) with high reliability and validity. Candidate questions for the NOSS were generated by expert consensus following focus group feedback, and were used to survey in 2013. A shorter version was then developed after examination for validity and reproducibility in 2014. The accuracy of the short version of the NOSS for predicting nurses' stress levels was evaluated based on receiver operating characteristic curves to compare existing instruments for measuring stress outcomes, namely personal burnout, client-related burnout, job dissatisfaction, and intention to leave. Examination for validity and reproducibility yielded a shorter version of NOSS with only 21 items was considered sufficient for measuring stressors in nurses' work environments. Nine subscales were included: (1) work demands, (2) work-family conflict, (3) insufficient support from coworkers or caregivers, (4) workplace violence and bullying, (5) organizational issues, (6) occupational hazards, (7) difficulty taking leave, (8) powerlessness, and (9) unmet basic physiological needs. The 21-item NOSS proved to have high concurrent and construct validity. The correlation coefficients of the subscales for test-retest reliability ranged from 0.71 to 0.83. The internal consistency (Cronbach's α) coefficients ranged from 0.35 to 0.77. The NOSS exhibited accurate prediction of personal burnout, client-related burnout, job dissatisfaction, and intention to leave.

Keywords: nurse; occupational stressor; scale development; stressor scale; work environment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The process of the NOSS development.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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