Patient-centredness in care is a core healthcare value and an effective healthcare delivery design requiring specific nurse competences. The aim of this study was to assess (1) the reliability, validity, and sensitivity of the Finnish version of the Patient-centred Care Competency (PCC) scale and (2) Finnish nurses' self-assessed level of patient-centred care competency. The PCC was translated to Finnish (PCC-Fin) before data collection and analyses: descriptive statistics; Cronbach's alpha coefficients; item analysis; exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses; inter-scale correlational analysis; and sensitivity. Cronbach's alpha coefficients were acceptable, high for the total scale, and satisfactory for the four sub-scales. Item analysis supported the internal homogeneity of the items-to-total and inter-items within the sub-scales. Explorative factor analysis suggested a three-factor solution, but the confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the four-factor structure (Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) 0.92, goodness-of-fit index (GFI) 0.99, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) 0.065, standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) 0.045) with 61.2% explained variance. Analysis of the secondary data detected no differences in nurses' self-evaluations of contextual competence, so the inter-scale correlations were high. The PCC-Fin was found to be a reliable and valid instrument for the measurement of nurses' patient-centred care competence. Rasch model analysis would provide some further information about the item level functioning within the instrument.
Keywords: assessment; competence; instrument; measurement; patient-centred care; reliability; validity.