Policy makers, health care organizations, and health professionals are calling for expansion of nurse practitioner workforce in primary care to assure timely access for the American public. However, many obstacles to effective nurse practitioner primary care practice exist, including barriers at the organizational level, and there is lack of reliable and valid instruments to measure organizational climates to identify those barriers from nurse practitioners'perspectives. The Nurse Practitioner Primary Care Organizational Climate Questionnaire (NP-PCOCQ) is being developed through literature review, investigation of existing instruments, nurse practitioner focus group data, content validation, and pretesting. Five domains underlying organizational climate perceived by nurse practitioners are proposed: a) autonomy, b) professional status, c) empowerment, d) collegiality, and e) policy. Each NP-PCOCQ subscale measures one organizational climate domain through items asking nurse practitioners to rate their perceptions on a 4-point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The purpose of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of NP-PCOCQ, and further refine and validate this survey instrument.
Specific aims i nclude 1) To examine whether the items on each subscale measure the intended construct fitting the data from nurse practitioners utilizing confirmatory factor analysis. 2) To further investigate and establish construct validity of the instrument through using item response theory models. A cross-sectional survey design with a sample of nurse practitioners from the Massachusetts Health Quality Partners Massachusetts Provider Database will be used. The sample will include nurse practitioners practicing in primary care settings in Massachusetts (n=713). Each nurse practitioner will receive a mail survey along with a cover letter and consent form explaining the study purpose, their rights as participants, and the confidentiality and anonymity of their responses. They will be asked to complete the survey and return it to the research team. Post card reminders and second mailing will be initiated to increase the response rate. SPSS, LISREL, and MULTILOG statistical software will be used for data entry and data analysis. Separate models will be estimated using confirmatory factor analysis for each organizational climate domain to demonstrate how the measures in each subscale measure the intended construct. Then using Samejima's Graded Response model in Item Response Theory the characteristics of each individual item will be investigated. These analytical procedures will assess the discriminant, convergent, and construct validity, and will produce sample invariant parameters. NP-PCOCQ may be used with various groups of nurse practitioners for conducting meaningful comparisons of organizational climates across practice sites and states increasing the utility of the instrument.

Public Health Relevance

The study contributes significantly to public health by developing a survey instrument to measure organizational climates in primary care settings to identify organizational climate attributes that impact nurse practitioners'abilities to provide timely, high quality, and safe care to the American public.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Type
Small Research Grants (R03)
Project #
5R03HS020999-02
Application #
8335133
Study Section
Health Systems Research (HSR)
Program Officer
Hagan, Michael
Project Start
2011-09-30
Project End
2013-12-31
Budget Start
2012-09-30
Budget End
2013-12-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2012
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Columbia University (N.Y.)
Department
Type
Schools of Nursing
DUNS #
621889815
City
New York
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
10032
Poghosyan, Lusine; Norful, Allison A; Liu, Jianfang et al. (2018) Nurse Practitioner Practice Environments in Primary Care and Quality of Care for Chronic Diseases. Med Care 56:791-797
Poghosyan, Lusine; Liu, Jianfang; Norful, Allison A (2017) Nurse practitioners as primary care providers with their own patient panels and organizational structures: A cross-sectional study. Int J Nurs Stud 74:1-7
Poghosyan, Lusine; Liu, Jianfang; Shang, Jingjing et al. (2017) Practice environments and job satisfaction and turnover intentions of nurse practitioners: Implications for primary care workforce capacity. Health Care Manage Rev 42:162-171
Poghosyan, Lusine; Liu, Jianfang (2016) Nurse Practitioner Autonomy and Relationships with Leadership Affect Teamwork in Primary Care Practices: a Cross-Sectional Survey. J Gen Intern Med 31:771-7