Development and psychometric properties of the Ageism Questionnaire for Nurses (AQN)

Background With the accelerating aging of Chinese society, nursing professionals are progressively tasked with providing care for a growing population of elderly patients annually. Concurrently, manifestations of ageism within this professional cohort have become increasingly salient, underscoring an urgent imperative for empirical investigation into this phenomenon within healthcare contexts. Objective This study aimed to develop and validate a theoretically grounded Ageism Questionnaire for Chinese Nurses (AQN), tailored to actual clinical nursing scenarios. Method Initial questionnaire items were formulated through a synthesis of extant literature and semi-structured interviews with nursing practitioners. Subsequent refinement and item screening were conducted via the Delphi method. Data were collected between January and March 2025 from nurses engaged in elderly patient care across six public hospitals in Jilin Province.Data were collected using a sociodemographic sheet, Ageism Questionnaire for Nurses, the Fraboni Scale of Ageism, and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale.The psychometric properties of the AQN, encompassing structural validity, content validity, criterion validity, test-retest reliability, and internal consistency reliability, were rigorously evaluated. Results This study finally developed the Ageism Questionnaire for Chinese Nurses (AQN) with 2 dimensions and 23 items. Exploratory factor analysis verified the dimensions of ignoring elderly patients and rejecting elderly patients in the questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the two-dimensional structure of the questionnaire had a good fit. The alpha coefficients for the ignoring elderly patients dimension, rejecting elderly patients dimension, and total score were 0.907, 0.973, and 0.967, respectively. The split-half reliability was 0.864, 0.953, and 0.893, and the retest reliability was 0.889, 0.838, and 0.883, respectively. The criterion validity test results showed that the ignoring elderly patients dimension, rejecting elderly patients dimension, and total ageism attitude score were significantly correlated with work engagement. Conclusion The AQN exhibits robust psychometric properties, positioning it as a reliable and valid instrument for assessing ageist attitudes among nurses in Chinese healthcare settings.