Developing conceptually sound items for a clinical courage questionnaire.

Abstract

Clinical courage can be described as a rural doctor's adaptability and willingness to undertake clinical work at the limits of their training and experience to meet the needs of their patients. This article describes the in-house development of survey items to include in a quantitative measure of clinical courage. The questionnaire development involved two key concepts: a second-order latent factor model structure and a nominal group technique, used to develop consensus among the research team members. The steps taken to develop a sound clinical courage questionnaire are described in detail. The resulting initial questionnaire is presented, ready for testing with rural clinicians and refinement. This article outlines the psychometric process of questionnaire design and presents the resultant clinical courage questionnaire.