Validation of the Persian Version of Brief Occupational Coping Self-Efficacy for Nurses Scale

Background: Systematic and purposeful study of self-efficacy beliefs of Iranian nurses in the face of occupational stressors requires understanding the importance of studying this issue and then having a suitable tool to measure it in this group. This study aimed to assess the validity and reliability of the short form of Occupational Coping Self-Efficacy for Nurses Scale (OCSE-N) among Iranian nurses. Methods: This methodological study was conducted on a group of 151 nurses who were randomly selected from among those working in oncology wards of hospitals affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences - Iran in 2021. The nurses filled out the short form of (OCSE-N) and the short form of the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS-SF). This study employed exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine the factor structure of (OCSE-N). The reliability of (OCSE-N) was also tested by calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. The data were analyzed using AMOS and SPSS 26. Results: The results of analyzing the principal factors by the Promax rotation and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed that the two principal factors of the short form of (OCSE-N) are “coping self-efficacy about the relational difficulties at the workplace” and “coping self-efficacy against general nursing burden”. The pattern of correlation coefficients between subscales of the short form of (OCSE-N) and stress coping styles confirmed the convergent validity of this scale. Moreover, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for “self-efficacy in coping with communication difficulties at the workplace” and “self-efficacy in coping with the overall burnout of nursing profession” were equal to 0.75 and 0.77, respectively.  Conclusions: The study findings generally corroborated the stability of the factor structure of the short form of (OCSE-N) and its validity to measure self-efficacy beliefs in coping with stressful occupational situations among Iranian nurses.