Keywords
Validation study
Emotional Competencies
Emotional Intelligence
Nursing Students
Abstract
Background. There is increasing evidence that nurses experience a high degree of emotional stress already as undergraduate students during their clinical placements, especially in their first year. Students who develop emotional competencies improve their coping skills and decrease stress-related negative effects. A European Erasmus+ project developed an educational program on Emotional Intelligence to be incorporated into European nursing curricula for undergraduate nursing students. To evaluate the efficacy of the study, the Veiga Emotional Competence Scale Short Version for nursing students was used.
Aim. To adapt and validate the Italian version of the Veiga Emotional Competence Scale Short Version for nursing students.
Methods. This was an instrument validation study, performed following the EORTC Quality of Life Group and the COSMIN guidelines for the translation process. The process consisted of four phases: translation, content validation, face validation, and pilot test. Data were collected between May and July 2023.
Results. The Italian Version of the Veiga Emotional Competence Scale Short Version proved to have a good level of content validity Scale-Content Validity Index=0.93). A pilot test was conducted with 100 nursing students of different years of course, showing a good level of internal consistency and reliability (Cronbach’s alpha=0.852).
Conclusion. The validated and adapted instrument was successfully used during the Serious Game for Nursing Students (SG4NS) project in Italy for the evaluations of the study intervention. This instrument could be used to effectively analyse and evaluate nursing students’ emotional competencies for future studies in Italy.
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