Using the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index on Asian Nurses

Background. Researchers have used the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) to examine the perception of practice environment among U.S. nurses in general; however, the scale has not been used to measure perceptions specifically among Asian nurses working in the United States, the largest group of international nurses in the nation. Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the reliability and the validity of the PES-NWI scale when applied to Asian nurses working in the United States. Methods: The study used a cross-sectional design with snowball sampling. Data from 230 Asian nurses who were born in Far Eastern countries and had worked at least 6 months in their current job at a U.S. hospital were analyzed, using Cronbach's alpha, item-total and interitem correlation, and factor analysis. Results: The Cronbach's alpha for the PES-NWI was .96, and the item-total correlation coefficients ranged from .49 to .79. Five factors, which explained 59.12% of variance in the perception of practice environment, emerged: Nurse Participation and Development; Nurse Manager Ability, Leadership, and Support of Nurses; Nursing Foundations for Quality of Care; Staffing and Resource Adequacy, and Collegial Nurse-Physician Relations. Four derived factors were reconstructed and one factor was renamed based on the meanings of scale items that were included in the factor. Discussion: Study findings demonstrate that the PES-NWI is a reliable and a valid scale when applied to Asian nurses working in the United States. Findings also indicate that Asian nurses perceive practice environments differently than do American nurses, most likely due to dissimilar cultural beliefs. A better understanding of these differences may help develop more individualized support for Asian nurses as they adapt to working in the United States.