Assessing nurses’ digital competence for public health systems: validation of a brief instrument and factors associated with competence

Background Nurses’ digital competence and e-health literacy are essential for safe use of electronic health records and other clinical information technologies, yet validated measures and context-specific evidence remain limited. This study evaluated the Polish adaptation of the Digital Competence Questionnaire for Nurses and examined correlates of nurses’ perceived digital competence in Poland. Methods A national cross-sectional computer-assisted web interviewing survey was conducted among practicing nurses ( N  = 800) in late 2025. The dataset was randomly split for polychoric exploratory factor analysis ( N  = 367) and confirmatory factor analysis with ordinal diagonally weighted least squares estimation ( N = 433). A multiple linear regression model was fitted for the total score in the full sample. Results