Medical student quality-of-life in the clerkships: a scale validation study

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Psychometrics
• Student Well-being

Background:

• Medical school presents numerous stressors for students.
• Assessing student well-being is crucial for evaluating and improving clerkship programs.
• Existing measures may not adequately capture the nuances of medical student quality of life.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a reliable and valid measure of quality of life for medical students.
• To create a tool for assessing student reactions to clerkship programs.
• To provide an outcome variable for medical educational research.

Main Methods:

• Items tapping general happiness, fatigue, and anxiety were sampled.
• Factor analysis was used to develop the quality-of-life scale from student responses (2005-2008).
• Reliability (Cronbach's alpha) and validity (factor analysis, convergent, and sensitivity to change) were assessed.

Main Results:

• A refined nine-item Likert scale measure with two domains (exhaustion, general happiness) was developed.
• The scale demonstrated good reliability and factorial validity across two samples and time points.
• The measure correlated with depression and sleep, and was more sensitive to change than a depression measure.

Conclusions:

• The developed quality-of-life scale is a short, easily administered tool for medical education research.
• It is useful for program evaluation and as a general outcome variable.
• The scale offers a reliable and valid method for assessing medical student well-being.