Nursing self-efficacy for oral anticoagulant therapy management: Development and initial validation of a theory-grounded scale

Aim: This study aimed to develop and validate a nursing self-efficacy scale for OAC management (SE-OAM). Background: Oral anticoagulant therapy (OAC) requires specific nursing competencies. Given that self-efficacy acts as a proxy assessment of nursing competence, its measurement is pivotal for addressing educational programs to enhance nursing competence in managing OAC. Thus far, the measurement of self-efficacy in OAC is undermined by the unavailability of valid and reliable tools. Methods: A multi-method and multi-phase design was adopted: Phase one was a methodological study encompassing developmental tasks for generating items. Phase two comprised the validation process for determining the content validity, construct and concurrent validity, and internal consistency through two cross-sectional data collections. Results: In total, 190 nurses were enrolled for determining the psychometric structure of the SE-OAM through an exploratory approach, and 345 nurses were subsequently enrolled to corroborate its most plausible factor structure derived from the exploratory analysis. The SE-OAM showed evidence of face and content validity, adequate construct, concurrent validity, good internal consistency, and stability. The final version of the scale encompassed 21 items kept by five domains: clinical management, care management, education, clinical monitoring, and care monitoring. Conclusions: The SE-OAM showed evidence of initial validity and reliability, fulfilling a current gap in the availability of tools for measuring nursing self-efficacy in managing OAC. SE-OAM could be strategic for performing research to improve the quality of OAC management by enhancing nursing self-efficacy.