An instrument to assess the role of clinical pharmacists in community pharmacies: Evidence for the validity of content and construct

Abstract

The role of the clinical pharmacist is expanding all over the world, and knowing the work process of these professionals, who work in community pharmacies, may aid in improving professional practice. To develop and validate an instrument to Assess the Role of Clinical Pharmacists (ARCP). A psychometric study was conducted in four phases and eight stages for the validation of the instrument, describe as follows: 1) Specification of the construct from literature review; 2) Designing the items, with 53 items spread in three dimensions; 3) Outcome space, to evaluate the opinion of experts and target population. The suggestions of experts were evaluated in two rounds, considering the change and exclusion of items when the value of the Content Validity Ratio (CVR) was less than 0.99. Four items were excluded, and one item was subdivided in two. The instrument product of this stage was 50 items adequately understood by the target population. 4) Measurement model, for internal assessment and reliability of the instrument. The internal assessment was studied in factor analysis and the adequate reliability was measured by Cronbach's alpha and Mcdonald's Omega. A total of 40 items was considered in the factor analysis that preliminarily indicated a model with three factors, in which 12 items were excluded. After the removal of the items, factor analysis indicated a model with two dimensions, which showed satisfactory reliability. The last version was constituted of 28 items and two dimensions, called clinical-care and clinical-educational. The ARCP Instrument showed evidences of validity and reliability for the assessment of the role of clinical pharmacists who work in community pharmacies.