Patient-centeredness is emphasized
in both health policies and practice, calling for reliable instruments
for the evaluation of the quality of nursing care.

The
purpose was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Good Nursing
Care Scale (GNCS) in a sample of surgical patients and nurses.

An
explorative cross-sectional study design was used. Data were collected
with the 40-item GNCS from surgical patients (n = 476) and nurses (n =
167) in Finland. The data were analyzed with Rasch analysis.

The
GNCS provided evidence of unidimensionality with acceptable
goodness-of-fit to the Rasch model in both samples. Person-separation
validity was acceptable. Person misfit was reasonable. The
Rasch-equivalent Cronbach α was 0.81 (patient data) and 0.88 (nurse
data).

The findings support that the GNCS is
a psychometrically sound instrument that can be used in measuring the
quality of nursing care, from the perspective of both patients and
nurses.