Development and validation of a brief version of the traditional Chinese Stressors in Nursing Students scale among college nursing students in Taiwan

Shoa-Jen Perng; Roger Watson; Graeme D Smith; Chen-Jung Chen; Tzu-Ying Lee; Malcolm Koo; Huei-Chuan Sung

doi:10.4103/tcmj.tcmj_217_21

Development and validation of a brief version of the traditional Chinese Stressors in Nursing Students scale among college nursing students in Taiwan

Tzu Chi Med J. 2022 Feb 9;34(3):353-357. doi: 10.4103/tcmj.tcmj_217_21. eCollection 2022 Jul-Sep.

Authors

Shoa-Jen Perng¹, Roger Watson², Graeme D Smith³, Chen-Jung Chen⁴, Tzu-Ying Lee⁵, Malcolm Koo¹, Huei-Chuan Sung¹

Affiliations

¹ Graduate Institute of Long-term Care, Tzu Chi University of Science and Technology, Hualien, Taiwan.
² Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom.
³ School of Nursing, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom.
⁴ Department of Nursing, Mackay Medical College, New Taipei, Taiwan.
⁵ Department of Nursing, Tzu Chi University of Science and Technology, Hualien, Taiwan.

Abstract

Objective: The 43-item Stressors in Nursing Students (SINS) scale has been evaluated among nursing students in several countries, including China, Hong Kong, Japan, Pakistan, and Spain. However, the original four-factor structure has not been consistently replicated in all of these populations. The aim of this study was to develop a brief version of the traditional Chinese SINS (TC-SINS) scale and to validate it in Taiwanese nursing students.

Materials and methods: Data obtained from a cross-sectional survey study of 814 nursing students in a nursing college and a university in Taiwan were randomly divided into two parts. The first part was used to conduct an exploratory factor analysis using principal axis factoring with oblique rotation. After the removal of cross-loading items, the resulting scale was validated with the data from the second part using confirmatory factor analysis.

Results: A three-factor solution (social, clinical, and education) with 23 items accounting for 54.5% of variance was obtained in the exploratory factor analysis. The confirmatory factor analysis further reduced the number of items to 20. The goodness-of-fit indexes were good (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.075 and Comparative Fit Index = 0.90).

Conclusions: The number of items in the TC-SINS could be reduced from 43 to 20, without sacrificing its psychometric properties. The brief version of TC-SINS might be able to reduce respondent burden.

Keywords: Factor analysis; Nursing student; Secondary analysis; Stress.