Developing the Occupational Therapy-Specific Mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise (Mini-CEX) for Evaluating Interns' Clinical Skills and Attitudes in Pediatric Occupational Therapy.

Abstract

The Mini-Clinical Evaluation Exercise (Mini-CEX) is highly recommended for assessing interns' performance. To develop a pediatric occupational therapy-specific Mini-CEX and examine its psychometrics. Stage 1 had a retrospective design; Stage 2 had a prospective design. Pediatric occupational therapy unit in a hospital in Taiwan. Thirty-four occupational therapy interns were evaluated with the Mini-CEX (physician version), and 57 were evaluated with the occupational therapy-specific Mini-CEX. The occupational therapy-specific Mini-CEX was developed with seven items on a 9-point scale categorized into three levels (unsatisfactory, satisfactory, highly satisfactory). In Stage 1, the frequency of Mini-CEX (physician version) items receiving a rating of not applicable ranged from 1.9% to 88.1%. In Stage 2, the frequency of occupational therapy-specific Mini-CEX items receiving a rating of not applicable ranged from 3.5% to 31.6%. With the theme of evaluation taken into consideration, the frequency of not-applicable ratings was 0% to 8.8%. For the occupational therapy-specific Mini-CEX, content validity (item-level content validity index = 1, scale-level content validity index = 1) and internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .93) were excellent. The interns' scores on the second evaluation were significantly higher than those on their first evaluation, indicating good discriminant validity. The occupational therapy-specific Mini-CEX appears to be reliable and valid, and it is appropriate for evaluating interns' skills and attitudes in pediatric occupational therapy practice. What This Article Adds: The results support the development of the occupational therapy-specific Mini-CEX and its application in pediatric internship training.