Assessing Interpersonal Guilt Among Clinical Nurses in China: Cultural Adaptation and Psychometric Validation of the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-20.

Authors

Yu Shuang Chen, Yi Li, Qing Yang, Yang Yang, Fang Ma, Qiu Lan Hu, Lan Ding, Wei Wei, Yan Li, Yang Juan Bai

Published in

Journal of nursing management. Volume 2026. Issue 1. Pages e2792011.

Abstract

Working in a chronically high emotional exhaustion environment, clinical nurses are prone to psychological burnout and associated professional psychological risks. Interpersonal guilt is recognized as an important potential mechanism affecting nurses' mental health, which may impair their personal well-being and nursing quality. However, there is still a lack of applicable assessment tools for measuring interpersonal guilt among Chinese clinical nurses.
The aim of this study is to translate the Interpersonal Guilt Rating Scale-20 (IGRS-20) into Chinese and evaluate its psychometric properties among clinical nurses in China.
A cross-sectional research design.
A total of 451 Chinese clinical nurses were recruited using the convenience sampling method.
The IGRS was translated into Chinese via the Brislin back-translation method. Its reliability was assessed by internal consistency, split-half, and retest reliability; validity was evaluated using content validity indicators, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
The Chinese version of IGRS contained 18 items. Its Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.833, with subscale values ranging from 0.780 to 0.831; split-half reliability was 0.860 and retest reliability was 0.868. The scale's I-CVI ranged from 0.833 to 1.000, and S-CVI was 0.981. The KMO value was 0.827, and Bartlett's sphericity test yielded χ² = 1524.165 (df = 153, p < 0.001). EFA adopting unweighted least squares extraction combined with Promax oblique rotation identified a robust four-factor model explaining 52.095% of total common variance (factor loadings: 0.569-0.957). CFA confirmed good model fit (χ²/df = 1.432, CFI = 0.959, IFI = 0.960, GFI = 0.917), validating the model's effectiveness for assessing nurses' interpersonal guilt.
The Chinese IGRS has good reliability and validity among Chinese clinical nurses. It can be used to measure nurses' interpersonal guilt level, facilitate the understanding of their psychological state, lay a foundation for targeted mental health interventions, and ultimately improve nursing quality.
The Chinese version of the IGRS provides a reliable assessment tool for nursing management to identify clinical nurses with high interpersonal guilt, enabling the design of culturally tailored psychological support programs that enhance nurses' emotional resilience and reduce professional psychological risks, thereby stabilizing the nursing workforce.

PMID:
42773764
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 23 Sep 2026.

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