Development and psychometric evaluation of the Professional Practice Environment (PPE) scale.

Purpose: To describe the Professional Practice Environment (PPE) scale, its conceptual development and psychometric evaluation, and its uses in measuring eight characteristics of the professional practice environment in an acute care setting.

Design And Methods: The 38-item PPE Scale was validated on a sample of 849 professional practice staff at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Psychometric analysis included: item analysis, principal components analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation and Kaiser normalization, and internal consistency reliability using Cronbach's alpha coefficient.

Findings: Eight components were shown, confirming the original conceptually derived model's structure and accounting for 61% of explained variance. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the eight PPE subscales ranged from .78 to .88.

Conclusions: Findings showed the 38-item PPE Scale was reliable and valid for use in health outcomes research to examine the professional practice environment of staff working in acute care settings.