Abstract: Objective To development nurse affective domain ability scale, and to test its reliability and validity, and to provide an effective tool for assessing nurses&' affective domain ability. Methods Guided by the five-level structure mode of affective domain ability, initial evaluation scale was formed after literature review, group discussion and two rounds of expert consultation. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 360 nurses in 3 tertiary grade A hospitals in Zhenjiang by convenience sampling to test the reliability and validity of the questionnaire then a formal scale was developed. Results Totally 18 items were deleted in the initial version of the scale and the questionnaire was composed of 4 dimensions with 25 items: professional value internalization (7 items), professional evaluation capacity (6 items), connotation of professional ability (7 items), professional belief perception (5 items). Four factors were extracted and the cumulative variance contribution rate was 68.117% and confirmatory factor analysis revealed good fit of the model. The content validity was 0.928; the item content validity index ranged from 0.800 to 1.000 respectively and the Cronbach&'s alpha coefficient and split-half coefficient was 0.959 and 0.897 respectively. Conclusion With good reliablity and validity, the scale is a practical tool that can be used to evaluate the affective ability of nurses.

Key words: nurses, Affective Domain Ability Scale, reliability, validity