Development of the Nurses' Environmental Awareness Tool

Elizabeth Caroline Schenk

Health care delivery in the United States results in negative impacts to the natural environment, stemming from excessive energy use, the creation of large volumes of waste, and the generation and use of toxic chemicals. Nursing is a major stakeholder in the health care delivery system; thus it is critical to understand nurses' awareness of the environmental impacts of their practice. No psychometrically analyzed instrument that measures nurse awareness of the environmental impacts of nursing practice is available in the literature. Therefore, the Nurse's Environmental Awareness Tool (NEAT) was developed. The content area of the items were determined by domains described in the conceptual framework called the EWT-E Wheel, and sorted into areas of Energy use, Waste production, Toxic chemicals and Engagement. The study had three phases: Item Development Phase, Pilot Phase and Study Phase. In the item development phase, seven content experts were interviewed. Several significant content changes were implemented. The items were organized into three subscales: nurse professional ecological behaviors, personal ecological behaviors, and nurse awareness. Both the pilot and study phase tested the factor structure of the NEAT using exploratory factor analysis. For the pilot phase, approximately 3500 registered nurses from four Providence Health & Services hospitals were surveyed yielding 306 respondents. For the study phase, approximately 4500 nurses from three different Providence Health & Services hospitals were surveyed, yielding 385 responses. Analyses resulted in six 1-factor scales of 9 to 11 items each. Five of the six scales had Cronbach's alphas over .700, ranging from .785 to .934. The sixth scale had a Cronbach's alpha of .676, which merits further examination to strengthen the scale. Next steps in development of NEAT will include Confirmatory Factor Analysis and ongoing testing of each of the constructs in different samples. The Nurses Environmental Awareness Tool is the first psychometrically analyzed instrument to measure nurses' awareness of the environmental impacts of nursing practice. By having a tool to objectively study this issue, nurses in acute care settings can begin to examine their practice and reach toward meeting their professional standard to practice in an environmentally safe and healthy manner.

Development of the Nurses' Environmental Awareness Tool

Files and links (1)

Abstract

Metrics

Details