Dimensions of leadership in undergraduate nursing students. Validation of a tool

Abstract

Background: Nurses require leadership skills in order to fulfil their clinical role in an ever-changing healthcare environment. The acquisition of such skills should therefore begin during their professional training.

Objectives: To identify the dimensions of leadership present among nursing undergraduates in the original Self-Assessment Leadership Instrument (SALI).

Design: This was a validation study involving the translation and cultural adaptation of the Self-Assessment Leadership Instrument (SALI) for use with nursing undergraduates in the Spanish context.

Setting: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in Spain.

Participants and methods: Participants were 280 nursing undergraduates (years 1-4) from a Spanish university. The SALI was adapted following the back-translation procedure, and its psychometric properties (validity and reliability) were analyzed.

Results: The Spanish version of the SALI maintains the 40 items of the original scale. Scores on the Spanish SALI were positively and significantly correlated (0.542, p = .000) with scores on the General Self-Efficacy Scale (convergent scale) and negatively and significantly correlated (-0.348, p = .000) with the total score on the Lille Apathy Rating Scale (divergent scale). Factor analysis indicated that scores on the Spanish SALI loaded on four dimensions: Strategic thinking, Emotional intelligence, Impact and influence, and Teamwork skills, which together accounted for 43.42% of the total variance. Cronbach's alpha for the total scale was 0.870 (range 0.688-0.781 for the four dimensions). Test-retest reliability over a 15-day interval was high (ICC = 0.929, p = .000).

Conclusions: The study has identified four key dimensions of leadership that nursing students need to acquire and provides a valid and reliable tool for assessing them. This will enable nurse educators to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching initiatives aimed at developing these competences.

Keywords: Instrument; Leadership; Leadership dimensions; Nurse education; Questionnaire; Undergraduate students; Validation and cultural adaptation.