Design and validation of the Organizational Climate Scale (ECO) in health professionals

Organizational climate plays a key role in healthcare quality and worker well-being, yet most existing measurement instruments were developed in business or educational settings and fail to capture the contextual specificities of public hospitals in Mexico. This study aimed to design and validate the Organizational Climate Scale (ECO) for healthcare professionals working in a secondary-level public hospital in southeastern Mexico. A cross-sectional psychometric study with a quantitative approach was conducted, structured in three phases: (1) theoretical grounding of the construct based on classical and contextual models; (2) initial construction of a 12-item Likert-type scale; and (3) evaluation of construct validity through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, convergent and concurrent validity assessments, and reliability analysis. The sample consisted of 309 medical and nursing professionals. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a unidimensional structure, with factor loadings above 0.70 and an explained variance of 53.68%. Confirmatory factor analysis showed good model fit (CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.06). The scale demonstrated high internal consistency (α = 0.87; ω = 0.87), acceptable convergent validity (AVE = 0.51), and significant negative correlations with the three dimensions of burnout syndrome, supporting concurrent validity. These findings indicate that the ECO is a valid, reliable, and contextually grounded tool for evaluating organizational climate in public healthcare institutions, facilitating diagnostic processes and guiding evidence-based improvements.