Measuring nursing practice models using multi-attribute utility theory

Nursing Practice Models (NPMs) represent the structural and contextual feat ures that exist within any group practice of nursing. Currently, measuremen t of NPMs relies on costly and nonreproducible global iudgments by experts. Quantitative measurement techniques are needed to provide a useful evaluat ion of nursing practice. Guided by Multi-Attribute Utility theory (MAU theo ry), an expert panel identified 24 factors representative of NPMs. The fact ors became elements in a computational index that, when summed, assigns a s core to a given nursing unit reflecting the extent to which that unit's nur sing practice model achieves the nursing professional ideal. Initial valida tion of the index and its elements consisted of comparing assessments of 40 nursing units generated by the index with a global evaluation provided by each of the expert panelists who proposed the model factors. Pearson correl ations between the index-generated scores and the global assigned scores pr ovided evidence supporting the preliminary validation of the index. (C) 200 0 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.