NURSING COMPETENCY SCALE IN PRESSURE INJURY PREVENTION: A SCALE DEVELOPMENT STUDY

Nursing Competency, Pressure Injury

Pressure Injury, Pressure Injury Prevention, Nursing Competency, Scale Development, Psychometric Evaluation, Nurses, Medical Device-Related Pressure Injury

Pressure injuries remain an important patient safety problem and are associated with prolonged hospitalization, increased healthcare costs, pain, and reduced quality of care. Nurses play a key role in the prevention of pressure injuries through risk assessment, skin care, positioning, nutritional management, and evidence-based preventive interventions. The purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Nursing Competency Scale in Pressure Injury Prevention. The scale is intended to assess nurses' competencies regarding pressure injury prevention in line with updated international guidelines. The study will be conducted with nurses working in a training and research hospital in Türkiye. The scale development process will include item generation, expert evaluation for content validity, pilot testing, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, criterion validity, internal consistency analysis, and test-retest reliability assessment.

Pressure injuries are among the most common preventable adverse events in healthcare settings and continue to be a major patient safety concern worldwide. They are associated with prolonged hospitalization, increased healthcare costs, infection risk, pain, and decreased quality of life. Nurses play a central role in pressure injury prevention through evidence-based interventions such as risk assessment, skin care management, repositioning, nutritional support, and preventive care practices. Recent updates in the international pressure injury prevention guidelines have introduced important changes regarding risk assessment, medical device-related pressure injuries, prophylactic dressings, nutritional management, and evidence-based preventive strategies. However, currently available instruments assessing nurses' attitudes or competencies toward pressure injury prevention are largely based on older guideline recommendations and may not adequately reflect current clinical standards. The aim of this methodological study is to develop and psychometrically evaluate the Nursing Competency Scale in Pressure Injury Prevention. The study will be conducted among nurses working in a training and research hospital in Türkiye. The scale development process will include literature review, item pool generation, expert evaluation for content validity, pilot testing, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, criterion validity analysis, internal consistency assessment, item-total correlation analysis, and test-retest reliability evaluation. The developed scale is expected to provide a valid and reliable instrument for evaluating nurses' competencies in pressure injury prevention according to updated international guidelines and evidence-based nursing practices.

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