Validity and reliability of the Brief TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Perceptions Questionnaire.

Background and Purpose: Teamwork is an essential component of hospital nursing quality and safety. The purpose of this study is to test the validity and reliability of the Brief TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Perception Questionnaire (Brief T-TPQ). Methods: The 20-item questionnaire was completed electronically by a sample (N = 456) of hospital bedside nurses and tested for reliability and validity. Results: The survey demonstrated internal consistency reliability of .83-.94 with a total survey reliability of .93. A hierarchical relationship three factor subscale structure was confirmed, explaining 64% of the variance and acceptable factor loadings. A secondary five-factor structure revealed statistically and conceptually coherent skills and behaviors sub-subscales. Discriminant validity was demonstrated with self-esteem and control over practice. Conclusions: The 20-item Brief T-TPQ is a valid and reliable survey to measure hierarchical teamwork relationships as well as teamwork skills and behaviors.Keywords: reliability and validity; questionnaires; nurses; teamwork; TeamSTEPPS; psychometric evaluationEffective teamwork is an essential component of high-quality and safe patient care (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 2000). Poor teamwork has been found to be a factor in health care errors and adverse patient events in retrospective and observational studies (Manser, 2009; Morey et al., 2002). Higher levels of medical-surgical nursing teamwork resulted in fewer care omissions or delays (Kalisch & Lee, 2010). The level of operating room teamwork is the strongest predictor of surgical errors and operating time (Manser, 2009). Providers who report higher levels of teamwork also report higher overall quality of patient care. In addition, provider's emotional exhaustion, burnout, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment are correlated with teamwork. Surveying hospital nurses is fraught with pragmatic difficulty for nurse scientists in the fast-paced and potentially chaotic work environment. Valid and reliable measures of hospital nursing teamwork that can be completed briefly by participants offer promising contributions to nursing science. The purpose of this study is to test the validity and reliability of the Brief TeamSTEPPS Teamwork Perceptions Questionnaire (T-TPQ), a 20-item revision of the T-TPQ, administered electronically to acute care registered nurses.BACKGROUND AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKAs part of a quality improvement initiative, the nursing research team for a northeastern five-hospital system determined the need to research bedside registered nurses (RNs) perceptions of teamwork. In our research team planning, data collectors expressed increasing concerns that staffnurses are experiencing "survey fatigue" from multiple requests to complete research surveys in an increasingly complex work environment. Recent workplace surveys in our population were receiving declining response rates as low as 10%. We anticipated nurses may experience multiple interruptions if they attempted to complete the survey in the workplace (McGillis Hall et al., 2010). Surveys that are distributed and completed in the nursing workplace create an additional task to nurses who express they are already overburdened. A common goal in developing research surveys is to capture the underlying concepts with the minimum number of items while preserving adequate validity and reliability (DeVellis, 2003). Thus, we anticipated a survey that had fewer items and could be completed in less time while still preserving acceptable psychometric properties that would enhance the research opportunities and return rate in our sample.Conceptual FrameworkFigure 1 depicts the conceptual model of the learned skills individuals must demonstrate to enhance teamwork outcomes of performance, attitudes, and knowledge. Individuals who contribute to effective teams demonstrate leadership, communication, situation monitoring, and mutual support within a functional team structure (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], 2006; Baker, Day, & Salas, 2006). …