The development of nursing workarounds is a significant concern for healthcare organizations with the potential to have longstanding consequences to patient safety. Although numerous studies have been published about workarounds in general, little is known about influential factors resulting in workaround development by nurses. At this time, only one valid and reliable instrument is available to measure nursing workarounds, the Workaround Instrument (Halbesleben et. al., 2013), however, it does not examine the potential relationships between RN’s decision to employ a workaround and other demographic variables or other personal influences.

The objective of this research was to psychometrically test the Workaround Motivation Survey (WMS). The WMS was designed specifically to distinguish between personal and professional motivational influences resulting in nursing workarounds as a method to predict those at greater risk for workaround development. The sample included nurses from four Mid-Western hospitals. Data were collected using RedCap, a web-based format that provides respondent confidentiality. Results indicate that the newly developed instrument is a reliable tool to identify nurses at greater risk for workaround development. Findings indicate the need for a larger sample size to accurately conduct factor analysis and to increase generalizability.