Purpose
The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a Hospital Violence Attitude Scale-18 (HVAS-18) for clinical nurses.
Methods
The HVAS-18 was developed and validated in 3 steps: Item generation through literature reviews and in-depth interviews, pilot study, and the validity and reliability tests using a test-retest technique. Forty-one items were initially extracted by 8 experts, and 18 items were finally developed by item and factor analysis. The final HVAS-18 was evaluated by 326 clinical nurses from seven general hospitals in three cities. The collected data were analyzed using factor analysis, Pearson correlation coefficient, and Cronbach's α
Results
Five discrete factors emerged, which explained 64.0% of the total variance. Each five factor was labeled: Factor 1 (6 items) 'awareness'explained 18.2%; Factor 2 (4 items) 'response' explained 12.9%; Factor 3 (4 items) 'reaction' explained 12.9%; Factor 4 (2 items) 'result-nursing' explained 10.2%; and Factor 5 (2 items) 'result-violence offender' explained 9.6%. The internal consistency, Cronbach's α, was .87, and reliability of the sub-scales ranged from .72 to .83.
Conclusion
The results of this study indicate that HVAS-18 can be an useful, reliable, and valid instrument for measuring hospital violence attitude of clinical nurses.