Psychometric evaluation of cost-reduction practice

It is difficult to measure cost-effective nursing. Methodological study design was applied as to test the construct validity and reliability of cost reduction practice scale (15-item) in Korean nurses.

Data were collected from 587 nurses who working at four hospitals located in S and D cities in Korea. Reliability and construct validity of the scale were conducted. Data were analyzed using the SPSS 23.0 program. Item analysis and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were performed to evaluate the construct validity. The reliability of the scale was verified by Cronbach's alpha to confirm the internal consistency.

The former was used to calculate correlations between each item and total items. The latter was used to identify the structure of the factors that represent test items. Before the exploratory factor analysis, the data were confirmed with Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test and Bartlett's sphericity test to determine if the data could be analyzed using factor analysis. As a result of item analysis, the item-total item correlation of the modified 12 items was.291-.499. The exploratory factor analysis using varimax rotation of principal component analysis yielded two factors that have an eigenvalue of one or greater. Ten items with factor loadings of.432 or greater were extracted as factor 1(consumable savings); eigenvalue and explanatory power were determined to be 3.36 and 27.99%, respectively. The factor loadings of the other two items were.886 or greater, and they were extracted as factor 2(equipment management). Their eigenvalues and explanatory power were 1.75 and 14.57%, respectively. The total variance was 42.56%. For reliability of the cost-reduction practice, Cronbach's⍺=.770.

The scale is expected to be helpful in determining the level of cost reduction practice of nurses at the hospital and searching for strategies.