Description

The Nursing Dimensions Inventory (NDI) is an assessment instrument designed to examine individuals’ perceptions of nursing care and the importance attributed to different dimensions of nursing practice.

The original NDI-35 was developed in 2003 by Watson and colleagues and consisted of 35 items. Following its adaptation to the Greek context, the GR-NDI-24 was developed by Kotrotsiou and colleagues in 2014.

The Greek version consists of 24 items and provides a structured framework for examining perceptions regarding important aspects of nursing care. Particular emphasis is placed on Clinical Work and Patient Needs, allowing different components of nursing practice to be evaluated separately.

Objective

The primary objective of the Nursing Dimensions Inventory is to examine and evaluate respondents’ perceptions of the dimensions of nursing care.

According to the source, the questionnaire was designed around three indicators of provided nursing care: Clinical Work, Patient Needs, and Overall Nursing Care.

Through the assessment of these areas, the instrument provides information about what participants consider important in the provision of nursing care and can contribute to a better understanding of attitudes and priorities within nursing practice.

Dimensions

The GR-NDI-24 produces two main subscales or factors representing dimensions of provided nursing care.

Clinical Work consists of 17 items and reflects participants’ perceptions of the importance of activities and responsibilities associated with clinical nursing practice.

Patient Needs consists of 7 items and focuses on the importance attributed to recognizing and responding to patients’ needs within the nursing care process.

These two dimensions are considered independently and can therefore be analyzed separately to provide a more detailed representation of perceptions regarding nursing care.

Data Analysis and Use

Each GR-NDI-24 subscale is treated as an independent dimension and scored separately by summing the scores of its corresponding items.

Descriptive statistics, such as the mean, median, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, and range, may be calculated for the total scale and for each individual subscale to summarize the distribution of participants’ responses.

Depending on the objectives of a study, scores may also be compared across different demographic or professional groups to investigate potential differences in perceptions of nursing care.

Reliability analysis can additionally be applied to examine the internal consistency of the scale and its dimensions, while factor-analytic approaches may be used when investigating the underlying structure of the instrument in different samples.

Scoring

The GR-NDI-24 consists of 24 statements, all rated using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from:

1 = Very important
to
5 = Not important at all

The total GR-NDI-24 score ranges from 24 to 120.

The Clinical Work subscale, consisting of 17 items, produces scores ranging from 17 to 85.

The Patient Needs subscale, consisting of 7 items, produces scores ranging from 7 to 35.

Because of the direction of the response scale, lower scores indicate that the corresponding aspect of nursing care is perceived as more important, whereas higher scores indicate lower perceived importance.

Reliability and Validity

According to the provided source, the Nursing Dimensions Inventory has been used internationally as a reliable and valid self-assessment instrument for examining perceptions of provided nursing care.

The source also reports that the factorial validity and internal reliability of the Greek GR-NDI-24 version are acceptable.

Further investigation using larger, representative, and randomly selected samples may contribute to a more comprehensive evaluation of its psychometric properties and to a better understanding of the attitudes and standards of care among Greek nurses.

Applications

The Nursing Dimensions Inventory can be used in nursing research and studies examining perceptions of nursing care and professional nursing practice.

It can support the investigation of how different aspects of nursing care are perceived and prioritized and may facilitate comparisons between different groups of nursing professionals.

The separate assessment of Clinical Work and Patient Needs provides a multidimensional perspective on nursing care and can help researchers better understand which aspects of nursing practice are considered particularly important by participants.

The instrument may therefore provide useful information for research concerned with nursing practice, perceptions of care, patient needs, and standards of nursing care.

Bibliographic Information

Original authors: Watson, R., Deary, I. J., & Lea, A.

Greek adaptation: Kotrotsiou, E., Gouva, M., Kotrotsiou, S., Malliarou, M., & Paralikas, T.