Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Nurse/Medical Resident Physician Collaboration

Introduction: The purpose of this pilot study is to investigate the reliability of an interprofessional collaboration measurement scale used for nursing interactions with resident physicians. To date, the collaboration between nurses and residents has not been adequately investigated and a validated tool specifically for this purpose is not yet available. Our objective is to adapt a previously validated interprofessional scale for health care settings to the specific nurse/resident physician collaboration.

Methods: In 2019, nurses from two hospitals were contacted via email and were invited to complete an anonymous survey that asked about the nurses’ interaction and collaboration with resident physicians.

Results: Our inquiry of 850 nurses with 59 completing a survey, returned a response rate of about 7% . Internal consistency for the scale was very high ( alpha = 0.92) with no single item disproportionally reducing the reliability of the scale.

Conclusion: Despite the limited sample size of the present pilot study, this scale was effective for examining nurse/resident collaboration. Further research will seek to expand our sample size and include measures of concurrent validity.