Background: Nursing informatics competency is a critical component of nursing practice since it plays a major role in promoting the quality of patient care and safety. The Self-Assessment of Nursing Informatics Competencies Scale (SANICS) has been developed in English to assess the nursing informatics competency level. However, a valid and reliable Arabic version of the SANICS is lacking. Therefore, it is essential to translate the SANICS instrument into Arabic language and assess its psychometric properties.
Purpose: To evaluate the psychometric proprieties of the Arabic version of the self-assessment nursing informatics competency scale among Arabic-speaking nurses.
Methods: A descriptive, methodological, correlational, cross-sectional study was carried out on 176 nurses using a translated SANICS questionnaire. The nurse's selection was based on the nonprobability convenience sampling technique, from three governmental hospitals. The psychometric proprieties were assessed using content validity, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, convergent and divergent validity, and reliability tests.
Results: The scale content validity index (S-CVI) was excellent .93. Exploratory factor analysis revealed five factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.00, accounting for 71.62% of the total variance. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the fit indices for the tested scale model were acceptable as follows: χ2/df = 1.994, p <.001, RMSEA = 0.075, CFI = 0.916, SRMR= 0.070, TLI= 0.901, IFI = 0.917. The internal consistency of the overall scale was supported by Cronbach's α, McDonald's omega, composite reliability, and split-half reliability ranges between .959 and .984.
Conclusion: The psychometric proprieties of the Arabic version of SANICS were examined using content validity, EFA, CFA, convergent validity, divergent validity, and also with internal consistency methodologies. It was concluded that the Arabic version of SANICS is valid and reliable. This scale can be used to assess the nursing informatics competency level among nurses and nursing students in the Arab region.
Implication for Nursing: Nursing informatics plays a significant role in the areas of practice, education, research, and administration. Healthcare facilities can accurately assess a nurse's informatics competency by using this tool. In addition, the presented tool can serve as a valuable resource for designing educational strategies aimed at enhancing nursing students’ informatics competencies within the dynamic healthcare information technology environment.