Evaluation of Psychometric Properties of the tool for identifying "Patients' Views on the Observance of Professional Behavior by Specialized Physicians"

Background & objectives: Considering the importance of professional commitment in medical services, it is necessary to provide an appropriate questionnaire to measure professional commitment and behavior. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the psychometric properties of the questionnaire "Patients' views regarding the observance of professional behavior by specialist doctors". Methods: The present study is a psychometric research that was conducted in four phases. The first phase of this study was based on a professional behavior tool guide, review of texts and collection of experts' opinions. in the second phase , determining the validity of items in the form of the face and content validity, in the third phase , the pilot study, and in the fourth phase,instrument reliability was conducted in two ways: internal consistency and instrument stability. Results: A pool of 50 items was formed to design the questionnaire. After interviewing the study population and removing overlapping items, the number of items was reduced to 31 items. The results of CVR calculation showed that out of the total of 31 items, 13 items had a cutoff point less than 0.42, which were removed, and 18 items with a CVR score > 0.62 remained according to the opinion of the research team. In the face validity stage, the Impact factor < 1.5 was used as the basis for exclusion, and all the items had a high impact factor, and finally, the draft of the questionnairewas approved with the same 18 items. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.88 and the internal correlation coefficient of the questionnairewas 0.93, which indicated the appropriate reliability of the questionnaire. Conclusion: Based on the results of the present study, the questionnaire on "Patients' views regarding the observance of professional behavior by a specialist physician" in Iranian society has the necessary content and face validity and adequate reliability. By using this questionnaire, hospital officials can check the status of professional ethics of their specialist physician from the patients' point of view and take effective measures to eliminate the shortcomings.