Abstract
Background: There is broad consensus that assessing and improving the competence of nurses is a crucial element of nursing education and practice. Numerous national and international nursing research studies have used the 35-item Nurse Professional Competence Scale (NPC-SV) to measure the self-reported competence of nursing students and registered nurses. To increase its usage in Arabic-speaking nations, however, a culturally adapted Arabic version of the scale with the same level of quality was necessary. Objectives: The study aimed to develop a culturally adapted Arabic version of the NPC-SV and evaluate its reliability and validity (construct, convergent, and discriminant types). Methods: Methodological descriptive cross-sectional design was utilized. A convenience sampling technique was employed to recruit 518 undergraduate nursing students from three Saudi Arabian institutions. The translated items were appraised by a panel of experts, who considered the content validity indexes. The structure of the translated scale was examined using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling, and the Analysis of Moment Structure method. Results: When utilized with nursing students in Saudi Arabia, the Arabic short version of the Nurse Professional Competence Scale (NPC-SV-A) was shown to be reliable and valid in terms of its content, construct, convergent, and discriminant validity. Cronbach's alpha for the entire NPC-SV-A scale was 0.89 and varied from 0.83 to 0.89 for each of the six subscales. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed six significant factors with 33 items that accounted for 67.52 percent of the variance. The scale was congruent with the suggested six-dimensional model, as confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Conclusion: The Arabic version of the NPC-SV, which was reduced to 33 items, showed good psychometric properties, with a six-factor structure accounting for 67.52% of the total variance. When used alone, this 33-item scale can allow for more in-depth evaluations of self-reported competence among nursing students and licensed nurses.