Abstract
Objective: The purpose was to examine the psychometric properties of the Revised Professional Practice Environment (RPPE) scale.
Background: Despite renewed focus on studying health professionals' practice environments, there are still few reliable and valid instruments available to assist nurse administrators in decision making.
Methods: A psychometric evaluation using a random-sample cross-validation procedure (calibration sample [CS], n = 775; validation sample [VS], n = 775) was undertaken.
Results: Cronbach [alpha] internal consistency reliability of the total score (r = 0.93 [CS] and 0.92 [VS]), resulting subscale scores (r range: 0.80-0.87 [CS], 0.81-0.88 [VS]), and principal components analyses with Varimax rotation and Kaiser normalization (8 components, 59.2% variance [CS], 59.7% [VS]) produced almost identical results in both samples.
Conclusions: The multidimensional RPPE is a psychometrically sound measure of 8 components of the professional practice environment in the acute care setting and sufficiently reliable and valid for use as independent subscales in healthcare research.