Assessing shared leadership in interprofessional team meetings: A validation study

Abstract

Background: Shared leadership, a team property whereby leadership is distributed among team members, is increasingly salient in interprofessional team-based care. There is currently no validated scale to measure shared leadership in healthcare teams. We aim to describe the developmental and validation of the Clinical Shared Leadership Scale (CSLS) in the context of interprofessional geriatrics care. Methods: We adapted the CSLS from the Woods (2005) and Carson (2007) scales that were originally used to study management teams. We collected survey data from 115 healthcare professionals who attended interprofessional team meetings (IPTM) in two subacute geriatrics ward. We analyzed internal consistency using Cronbach’s α, as well as construct, convergent, divergent, concurrent and predictive validity using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), inferential statistics and logistic regression. Results: The 14-item CSLS scale has mean score of 52.32±4.86 (range: 14-70). The scale exhibited high internal reliability (Cronbach’s α=0.76). EFA identified three factors, namely social cohesion, joint involvement, and hierarchical structure (α: 0.76, 0.80 and 0.46 respectively). The good correlation of CSLS total score with internal team environment (ITE) (r=0.78, p<.01) and transactive memory system (TMS) (r=0.65, p<.01) supports convergent validity, whereas poor correlation with task complexity (r=0.17, p=.08) corroborates divergent validity. CSLS total scores increase significantly with increasing number of IPTM attended, higher ITE and higher TMS scores (p<.05), indicating concurrent validity. CSLS total and factor scores, with the exception of factor 3, predicted satisfaction outcomes. Conclusion: The CSLS is a reliable and valid measure to assess shared leadership in interprofessional team meetings. The third factor, hierarchical structure, merits further study.