Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index

The Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI) is a 31-item instrument designed to measure nurses' perceptions of their practice environment, particularly factors related to autonomy, control over practice, and organizational support. Developed by Lake in 2002 and based on foundational work by Kramer and Hafner, the PES-NWI assesses five key domains: nursing foundations for quality care, staffing and resource adequacy, collegial nurse–physician relationships, nurse manager ability and support, and organizational support for nursing. It is widely used in hospital quality and nursing research to identify environmental factors associated with nurse satisfaction, retention, and patient safety outcomes.