The Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Ethical Issues Scale

Abstract

Purpose To describe the Ethical Issues Scale (EIS), its conceptual development and psychometric evaluation, and its uses in determining how frequently nurses experience ethical issues in practice. Design The EIS was validated with a sample (N = 2,090) of New England registered nurses (RNs) currently in practice. The sample was randomly split into two approximately equal samples. The calibration sample was used to derive the underlying components; the validation sample was used to confirm the component structure. Methods Psychometric analysis of the 35-item EIS included: (a) item analysis, (b) confirmatory principal components analysis (PCA), and (c) internal consistency reliability using Cronbach's alpha. Results Three components (end-of-life-treatment issues, patient care issues, and human rights issues) were demonstrated, confirming the original conceptually-derived structure. The calibration sample accounted for 42.4% of initially extracted common variance; the validation sample accounted for 41.5% of initially extracted common variance. Conclusions The three EIS subscales had satisfactory internal consistency reliability and factorial validity for use as independent scales in future studies.