[Feelings of difficulty experienced by home healthcare support workers in collaborative practice with medical...

Objective　Healthcare support workers play an important role in team healthcare. The objective of this study was to develop scales for measuring feelings of difficulty among home healthcare support workers when in collaborative practice with medical professionals.Methods　Scale drafts consisting of 10 questions were developed by an expert panel, using qualitative data from previous studies. We conducted a questionnaire survey of 220 healthcare workers in a certain city using the developed scales, and reliability and validity of the scale were examined.Results　An exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was conducted, after which two factor structures and six questions were selected. The factors were "feelings of disrespect from medical professionals" and "communication barriers between home healthcare support workers and medical professionals". Cronbach's coefficient alpha was 0.77-0.81 for the scale and its two subscales, which demonstrated good internal consistency. Correlation coefficients between the scale and the face-to-face cooperative confidence questionnaire (FFCCQ) and interdisciplinary collaborative practice scales (ICPS) were estimated to examine the criterion-related validity. As a consequence, the score of the scale had a significant negative correlation with FFCCQ and ICPS (r=-0.36--0.42). The two subscales also had negative correlations with FFCCQ and ICPS (r=-0.17--0.42).Conclusion　The scales we developed were reliable and valid for measuring home healthcare support workers' feelings of difficulty in collaborative practice with medical professionals.