Competency in community-oriented health care. Instrument development

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Public Health
• Healthcare System Transformation

Background:

• Healthcare systems require professionals with adaptive abilities and attitudes.
• Community-Oriented Health Care (COHC) education is a strategy to meet these evolving demands.
• Assessing competency in COHC is crucial for preparing future health professionals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and test the Community-Oriented Health Care Competency Scale.
• To measure health professionals' knowledge, attitudes, and intention to practice COHC.
• To establish the reliability and content validity of the new assessment instrument.

Main Methods:

• Instrument development involved literature review, focus groups, and expert opinion.
• The Community-Oriented Health Care Competency Scale was administered to assess knowledge, attitudes, and practice intention.
• Reliability was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha coefficients for each subscale.

Main Results:

• The scale demonstrated adequate reliability: Knowledge subscale (α = .95), Attitude subscale (α = .68), and Intention to Practice subscale (α = .93).
• Content validity was established through comprehensive literature review, focus group discussions, and expert consensus.
• The developed instrument shows promise for evaluating COHC competencies.

Conclusions:

• The Community-Oriented Health Care Competency Scale is a reliable instrument for assessing health professions students' COHC competencies.
• The scale can inform educational strategies aimed at preparing health professionals for community-oriented practice.
• Further testing is recommended to solidify the instrument's utility and validity in diverse healthcare settings.