The introduction of the Penn State College of Medicine Professionalism Questionnaire and the evaluation on its validity and reliability

Abstract

Objective To introduce the Penn State College of Medicine (PSCOM) Professionalism Questionnaire, and evalueted its reliability and validity. Methods The Chinese version of the PSCOM Professionalism Questionnaire was determined after the translation, retro-translation and expert consultation From November in 2016 to February in 2019. Using stratified sampling method and cluster sampling method, 390 and 4 100 general tertiary hospital physicians were selected to complete the questionnaire in two rounds of survey respectively. In the first round of small sampling survey, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied to test the structure validity of the original scale, and the scale was revised. In the second round of a large sampling survey, CFA and internal consistency analysis were used to test the validity and reliability of the modified scale. Results In the small sampling survey, the results of CFA showed that the model failed to meet the acceptable fitting criteria, which indicated that the primitive structure of PSCOM Professionalism Questionnaire was not suitable for Chinese general tertiary hospital physicians, thus leading to a revised 27-item professionalism scale formation. In the large sampling survey, the construct validity of the modified 27-item questionnaire was confirmed by a good model fit in CFA (χ2=3360.15, df=309, P<0.01, GFI=0.94, AGFI=0.93, PGFI=0.77, NFI=0.96, CFI=0.96, RMSEA=0.05). The Cronbach's α coefficient of all dimensions were higher than 0.80, and the Cronbach's α coefficient for the overall scale was 0.97. Conclusions The 27-item Chinese version of PSCOM Professionalism Questionnaire scale has good reliability and validity, and can be used as an effective tool for the evaluation of physician’s attitude towards professionalism. Key words: Physicians professionalism; Scale; Penn State; Reliability; Validity