Development and Testing of an Acute Care Nurses' Job Satisfaction Scale.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Factors affecting nurses' job satisfaction in the acute care setting may differ from nurses working in other settings. The aim of this study was to develop a new tool that measure the job satisfaction of acute care nurses who provide direct patient care. METHODS: Content validity then exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were used for validation of the new tool using a random sample of 349 acute care nurses. RESULTS: The EFA resulted in 31 items suggesting 6 factors were present in the instrument. The identified factors were: achievement/job interest/responsibility, hospital policy, quality of supervision, peer support/work condition, growth/advancement, and benefits/job security. CONCLUSION: A new tool for measuring acute care nurses' job satisfaction was developed based on a robust theoretical foundation and demonstrated sound psychometric properties.