Development and psychometric testing of the non-technical skills scale in medical and surgical hospital units for nursing students.

Objective: To develop and validate a tool to assess the non-technical skills of medical and surgical hospital units undergraduate nursing students.

Background: In the area of healthcare, non-technical skills complement technical ones, and contribute to patient safety. High-fidelity simulation is an ideal resource for working on these skills. Thus, evaluation instruments are needed to understand the efficiency of this methodology. Although many evaluation instruments already exist, none measure non-technical skills of undergraduate nursing students in medical and surgical hospital units.

Design: An instrumental study design was employed.

Methods: Two-phases were used to develop and validate the scale: 1) Scale development. A group of experts defined the dimensions and components. Afterwards, the content was validated by experts, and a pilot study was conducted with undergraduate Nursing students. 2) Analysis of the psychometric properties of the scale. A total of 393 students were evaluated in high-fidelity simulation scenarios by three evaluators, through the use of the Non-Technical Skills in Medical and Surgical Hospital Units (NTS-Nursing) Scale.

Results: The content validity indexes were adequate for the total of the items and the total of the scale. The statistical descriptors of the items, the internal structure, and the reliability (internal consistency and inter-evaluator reliability) were analyzed, as well as the external evidence of validity, with adequate values obtained.

Conclusion: The NTS-Nursing scale is a valid and reliable instrument. Its structure of 10 items makes its use fast and easy.