Positive psychological measure: constructing and evaluating the reliability and validity of a Chinese Humor Scale applicable to professional nursing.

The nursing profession has generally accepted humor as beneficial to health care. As nursing has always emphasized holistic care and the importance of individual needs, the profession values the ability of humor to positively affect all aspects of a patient's well being. The purposes of this study were to develop a "Chinese Humor Scale (CHS)" for the nursing profession and then test its reliability and validity. The 405 individuals selected for participation in this study included nursing on-the-job students from a medical university and professional nurses practicing at four hospitals in north Taiwan. Researchers developed a list of 57 key humor measures which were filled out and returned by study participants. An evaluation of results using Cronbach's alpha coefficients demonstrated good consistency (alpha=.93) for the developed CHS. Intercorrelations amongst the four sub-scales were generally quite low, indicating each sub-scale measures dimensions relatively distinct from one another (r=.24 approximately .48, both p's