Development and validation of the Johns Hopkins Disruptive Clinician Behavior Survey

Although the negative impact of disruptive clinician behavior on quality health care delivery has gained attention recently, little systematic effort to address this issue has been reported. To facilitate empirical research to reduce disruptive clinician behaviors, an assessment tool (Johns Hopkins Disruptive Clinician Behavior Survey [JH-DCBS]) with 5 discrete subscales was developed using a 2-step design. First a pool of items was generated from focus group studies and the literature, and then a psychometric evaluation of the survey was conducted with a sample of clinicians (N = 1198) practicing in a large urban academic medical center. The results indicated that the tool was reliable (Cronbach α = .79-.91), showed high content validity (Content Validity Index = .97), and had significantly high correlations with theoretically selected variables. The study team concluded that the JH-DCBS provides a valid empirical assessment of disruptive behavior. Assessment results may be used to design strategies to improve the health and safety of practice environments.