Development and validation of the short-form Ryff's psychological well-being scale for clinical nurses in Taiwan

Background: Research into clinical nurses' psychological well-being (PWB) is limited and fragmented. A reliable and valid measure is needed to advance the field of nurses' mental health. Objective: To examine the psychometric validity of Short-Form PWB Scale (PWBSs) among clinical nurses. Methods: This study adopted a cross-sectional design. Randomized cluster sampling was used to recruit clinical nurses from a medical center in Taipei, Taiwan, from July to October 2015. Nurses were recruited if they worked for more than 3 months in the medical center. The 84-item PWBS was used to assess PWB. Based on exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in this study, an 18-item version of Ryff's PWBS was developed using 474 respondents. The Short-Form PWBS was tested for internal consistency, construct validity, and criterion-related validity. Results: Cronbach's alpha was 0.88, with aggregated subscale alphas of 0.72-0.88, except 0.57 for autonomy. Good construct validity and criterion-related validity of the Short-Form PWBS were found. Conclusions: The study results showed that the Short-Form PWBS is suitable and recommended for Taiwanese clinical nurses.