Measuring Professional Governance: The Swedish Version of the Verran Professional Governance Scale©

Objective: To translate the Verran Professional Governance Scale© (VPGS©) into Swedish, adapt it to the Swedish context, and validate it.

Background: Magnet ® -recognized hospitals have proven successful in reversing negative trends regarding nursing shortage. A change in organizational and management structures is required, and professional governance is fundamental. However, in a Swedish context, there are no validated instruments to measure professional governance.

Methods: The instrument was translated from English to Swedish and synthesized into a unified version. It was back translated, discussed in an expert panel, and pilot tested with cognitive interviews of nurses.

Results: A new Swedish version of the VPGS© was developed. The expert group reached a consensus, and the scale-level Content Validity Index value shows high relevance. Some words and sentences were revised, and an introduction was added.

Conclusions: The study generated a Swedish version of the VPGS©, which can be used to measure nurses' perceptions of professional governance behaviors.