Developing a comprehensive tool to assess professional attitude among physicians and medical students

Neda Yavari; Fariba Asghari; Zahra Shahvari; Saharnaz Nedjat; Bagher Larijani

doi:10.18502/jmehm.v14i27.8283

Neda Yavari Assistant professor, Department of Medical Ethics, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
Fariba Asghari Professor, Medical Ethics and History of Medicine Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Zahra Shahvari Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing and Midwifery, Gachsaran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Gachsaran, Iran.
Saharnaz Nedjat Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Knowledge Utilization Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran.
Bagher Larijani Professor, Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinical Sciences Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/jmehm.v14i27.8283

Keywords: Professionalism; Professional attitude; Tool development; Medical students.

Abstract

It appears that up until now, no comprehensive tool has been developed to assess medical students’ attitudes toward the different dimensions of professionalism. The present study aimed to develop a comprehensive quantitative tool to evaluate medical students’ attitudes toward professionalism.

This study consisted of two phases: The first phase was item generation and questionnaire design based on literature review and a qualitative survey. The qualitative data were extracted from 49 semi-structured individual interviews and one focus group discussion. In the second phase, the questionnaire was developed and its face, content, and structure validity and reliability were evaluated. To measure the construct validity of the questionnaire, a cross-sectional study was conducted on 354 medical students at different academic levels at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.

The final questionnaire was loaded on five factors. The factors accounted for 43.5% of the total variance. Moreover, Cronbach's alpha was 0.84 for the total scale, and the interclass correlation coefficient was 0.77 for the test-retest reliability. The 17-item questionnaire measuring medical students’ professional attitude had acceptable validity and reliability and can be adopted in other studies on physicians’ and medical students’ professional attitudes.