Taiwanese version of the work-related quality of life scale for nurses: Translation and validation

Background: The shortage of professional nurses is a global issue of critical importance. Improving the retention and recruitment of nurses is necessary to reduce this shortage. The ability to measure the quality of work life (QWL) of nurses is important to understand the current QWL status among nurses and to develop appropriate improvement strategies. The two instruments that are currently used in Taiwan both require excessive amounts of time to complete. Furthermore, the results that these two instruments generate are not easily interdisciplinary and international comparisons. Purpose: The aims of this study were to translate into Chinese the English version of the Work-Related Quality of Life Scale (WRQoL) that was developed by Van Laar, Edwards, and Easton (2007) and then to determine the reliability and validity of this Chinese-version scale in terms of measuring the QWL of nurses in Taiwan. Methods: The WRQoL was translated from English into Chinese using forward-translation with group discussions, back-translation, and verification of conceptual equivalence. Concurrent validity, test-retest reliability, and internal consistency reliability were determined in two samples of nurses (n = 30 and n = 213 for Phases 1 and 2, respectively) from a medical center in Taiwan during September 2009. Results: The 23-item Taiwanese version of the WRQoL showed satisfactory concurrent validity with a Taiwanese QWL scale (correlation =.75). The 3-week test-retest reliability was.89, and the Cronbach's alpha was.88, indicating high internal consistency reliability. Conclusions/Implications for Practice: The Taiwanese version of the WRQoL is acceptable for measuring the QWL of nurses in Taiwan. Larger scale studies are recommended for confirmatory factor analysis. This tool may be used for human resources management and policy-making applications, providing the potential to help retain and recruit nurses in Taiwan. Furthermore, the Taiwanese-version scale may be used to compare work-related quality of life between Taiwanese nurses and their counterparts overseas.