Developing and validating an instrument to measure: the medical professionalism climate in clinical settings

Fariba   Asghari; Zahra  Shahvari; Abbas   Ebadi; Fateme   Alipour; Shahram  Samadi; Maryam   Bahreini; Homayoun   Amini

doi:10.18502/jmehm.v14i11.7666

Fariba Asghari Professor, Medical Ethics and History of Medicine Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Zahra Shahvari Assistant Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Islamic Azad University of Ghachsaran, Ghachsaran, Iran.
Abbas Ebadi Professor, Behavioral Sciences Research Center, Life style institute, Nursing Faculty, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Fateme Alipour Associate Professor, Eye Research Center, Farabi Eye Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Shahram Samadi Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Maryam Bahreini Associate Professor, Emergency Medicine Department, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Homayoun Amini Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Roozbeh Psychiatric Hospital. School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/jmehm.v14i11.7666

Keywords: Professionalism; Clinical setting; Questionnaire; Validation

Abstract

This study was conducted to develop and validate an instrument to measure the medical professionalism climate in clinical settings. The item pool was developed based on the Tehran University of Medical Sciences Guideline for Professional Conduct. The items were distributed between two questionnaires, one for health-care providers and the other for patients. To assess the construct validity of the questionnaires, 350 health-care providers and 88 patients were enrolled in the study. The reliability of the questionnaires was evaluated by calculating Cronbach’s alpha and ICC.

At first a 74-item pool was generated. After assessing and confirming face and content validity, 41 items remained in the final version of the scale. Exploratory factor analysis revealed the three factors of “personal behavior”, “collegiality” and “respect for patient autonomy” in a 25-item questionnaire for service providers and a single factor of “professional behavior” in a 6-item questionnaire for patients. The three factors explained 51.775% of the variance for service providers’ questionnaire and the single factor explained 63.9% of the variance for patients’ questionnaire.

The findings demonstrated that from the viewpoints of patients and service providers, this instrument could be applied to assess the medical professionalism climate in hospital clinical settings.