Validation of an instrument designed to assess medical student attitudes toward home care

To develop and validate an instrument to assess medical students' attitudes toward home care.

Survey administration before and following participation in a home care training program.

Five medical schools in the United States.

326 third and fourth year medical students.

Factor analysis was performed on all posttests. Domains were tested for internal reliability (Chronbach's alpha). Interdomain correlation was tested. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine whether the results for each domain differed among the five programs.

Using exploratory factor analysis, the original 20-item survey was revised to yield a 14-item survey consisting of four domains (general attitudes, home-based therapies, home care training, and time and reimbursement). Domain intra-item reliability ranged from 0.60 to 0.82. Interdomain correlations were found to be significant with the exception of one comparison (time and reimbursement and home care training). One-way ANOVA showed significant differences between the training programs for two of the four domains (home-based therapies and home care training). For a third domain, time and reimbursement, there was a trend toward differences across the schools (P = 0.06).

The instrument described in this paper is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing the impact of home care training on medical student attitudes across a series of important domains.