Overqualification and Underemployment: Italian Validation of the Scale of Perceived Overqualification (SPOQ-IT) in the Nursing Profession

Background: Acquired competencies, skills, and abilities can lead professionals into an overqualification situation that is associated with absenteeism, desire to abandon the respective profession, negative work performance, and interpersonal conflicts.

Aim: To develop and validate the Italian version of Maynard’s Scale of Perceived Overqualification (SPOQ).

Method: The SPOQ was linguistically and culturally adapted to develop and validate an Italian version (SPOQ-IT), calculating a content validity index and testing the scale validity with a cross-validation approach using Cronbach’s alpha, exploratory, and confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs).

Results: The SPOQ-IT had a good content validity index. Two dimensions (“overqualification” and “underemployment”) emerged from the exploratory and CFA. Age, gender, and working years affected the overqualification and underemployment perception in the Italian nursing profession.

Conclusion: The SPOQ-IT has good psychometric properties and demonstrated that acquired competencies, skills, and abilities are often underexploited in the Italian nursing profession, leading to overqualification and underemployment perceptions.

Implications for Nursing Management: Nursing managers should govern and monitor the overeducation and its effects on organizational and patients’ outcomes because the implementation of acquired competencies, skills, and abilities improves work performance and the quality of nursing care and avoids underemployment condition.