Development of scales to measure provider attitudes toward expanded duty dental auxiliaries.

Abstract

Much of the research on attitudes toward utilizing EDDAs has been rather haphazard in its measurement aspects. Examining responses to single items or summing across a series of items without any empirical rationale for such summing cannot be justified given current knowledge about measuring attitudes. The scales developed here are appreciably better from a psychometric point of view than scales reported in the dental literature to date. The use of standardized measuring instruments would facilitate cross-study comparisons. Such a process is presently not feasible because each researcher is using his own idiosyncratic scales of unknown psychometric characteristics. The three scales developed here to measure (1) the value of expanding auxiliary functions, (2) patient reaction to the use of EDDAs, and (3) satisfaction with changed dentist role may permit more standardized measurement of at least some aspects of provider and future provider attitudes toward the utilization of expanded duty dental auxiliaries.