Development, validity and reliability testing the Swedish Ethical Climate Questionnaire

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Ethics
• Psychometrics
• Organizational Behavior

Background:

• An ethical climate reflects shared perceptions of morally correct behavior in the workplace.
• Existing ethical climate questionnaires lack an inter-professional healthcare focus.
• The Swedish Ethical Climate Questionnaire (SECQ) was developed based on Habermas' democratic dialogue principles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present the construction of the Swedish Ethical Climate Questionnaire (SECQ).
• To test the psychometric properties of the SECQ for inter-professional healthcare settings.
• To assess the validity and reliability of the SECQ.

Main Methods:

• Content validity was evaluated by an expert group of six ethicists.
• The SECQ was administered to 355 healthcare workers across three Swedish hospitals.
• Psychometric properties were analyzed using parallel analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis.

Main Results:

• Parallel analysis suggested a one-factor solution for the SECQ.
• Initial exploratory factor analysis showed low concordance with a four-factor model.
• Confirmatory factor analysis supported a unidimensional model after item deletion, with good overall Cronbach's alpha (0.86, reduced to 0.82 after deletion).

Conclusions:

• The SECQ is best treated as a one-factor model, indicating unidimensionality.
• The 10-item SECQ demonstrates satisfactory validity and reliability for assessing ethical climate.
• The instrument effectively measures ethical climate as a whole in inter-professional healthcare contexts.