The major purpose of this study was to delineate items of practice for psychiatric staff nurses in hospital settings. Role theory was used to construct a theoretical framework. Role functions or operationalized items of nursing care were considered to be norms or standards of practice. Norms or standards of psychiatric nursing practice were identified as existing within Standard V of the ANA Standards of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Practice (1982). The components of intervention roles described in ANA Standard V were operationalized with the assistance of experts in psychiatric nursing. After several trials, twenty items were organized into a questionnaire which elicited perceptions of ideal and actual practice.

The final instrument was administered to 179 R.N. psychiatric staff nurses in three public and six private psychiatric settings. Construct validity of the questionnaire was demonstrated through factor analysis. Internal consistency was indicated by Cronbach's alpha of .893.

Frequencies of responses to the Ideal Scale indicated that most staff nurses considered the items to represent practices which are ideal for a majority of their patients. The non-parametric Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed-Ranks Test indicated that respondents perceived their ideal practice to include each item more often than their actual practice. Multiple regression analysis revealed that none of the recorded personal characteristics of the staff nurses predicted their responses.

Further testing of the instrument on a broader sample is recommended. The items of practice which were operationalized may be developed through future research for purposes of reimbursement and quality assurance.