Further analysis and refinements of the perceived stressors in intensive care units (PS-ICU) scale: a French nation-wide cross-sectional multicentre study

TL;DR

This study improves a tool for measuring job stress in intensive care units by confirming its reliability and reducing it to 26 items for easier use.

Contribution

The study confirms and refines the PS-ICU scale's validity across healthcare professionals and shortens it to 26 items.

Findings

The PS-ICU scale has confirmed metrological properties and can be used across nurses, physicians, residents, and nursing auxiliaries.

The scale was reduced to 26 items after removing redundant items and revising one factor.

Measurement invariance was confirmed, allowing comparisons between different professional groups.

Abstract

Assessing sources of job stress in intensive care units is a critical issue for preventing many occupational health and care-related issues, such as burnout, voluntary turnover and decrease in quality and safety of care. Accordingly, this French nation-wide multicentre study aims to provide supplementary evidence regarding the validity of a recent tool: the Perceived Stressors in Intensive Care Units (PS-ICU) scale. More precisely, this study has three main objectives: to 1) confirm the metrological properties of the PS-ICU scale on a large sample of professionals; 2) test its measurement invariance between nurses, physicians and residents (initial population targeted by the scale); 3) examine whether the scale would also be suited for use with nursing auxiliaries. In addition, depending on the results (which may suggest the removal of several items), this study offers the possibility to shorten the scale to facilitate its use.

2241 ICU professionals (1135 nurses, 308 physicians, 179 residents, and 619 nursing auxiliaries; overall participation rate of 58.10%) from 42 ICUs in France, voluntarily completed an online questionnaire collecting socio-demographic data and perceived job stressors (PS-ICU). Exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM), unidimensional reliability (McDonald’s Omega) and item response theory (IRT) analyses overall confirmed the metrological properties of the scale, while several items were removed and the sixth factor (“lack of support and resources from the organisation”) measured by the scale was revised. Results regarding measurement invariance show that the PS-ICU scale can be used to compare occupational groups, including nursing auxiliaries. Finally, all analyses resulted in a reduction of the scale to a 26-item version.

The PS-ICU scale, which measures generic and ICU-specific job stress factors, is a valid and reliable scale that can be used to collect data from nurses, physicians and residents, as well as from nursing auxiliaries. With 26 items, it can be used by researchers and managers in ICUs to assess the extent and type of stress factors perceived by healthcare professionals.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13613-025-01572-7.

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