Operating Room Educational Climate Scale for Surgical Specialty Residents: Scale Development and Validation

To develop a scale in Turkish language for evaluating the surgical specialty residents? perceptions of educational climate in the operating room, with an emphasis on learning in the operating suite and planning the relevant change for improved and standardized training.

Three surgeons from different disciplines provided expert opinions and a focus group meeting was held on the necessity, scope, and specificity of the items. The 5-point Likert type draft scale consisted of 28 items including ten negative statements scored reversely and having total scores ranging between 28-140 points. There were 5 subscales: educational process, teamwork, communication, operating room infrastructure, and surgical skills education. For assessing the validity and reliability, 172 surgical specialty residents from three hospitals in different locations were asked to answer the paper-based scale items anonymously. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test validity, whereas Cronbach?s alpha reliability coefficients were calculated for internal consistency.

CFA revealed a chi-square, standard deviation, chi-square/standard deviation, and a p-value of 783.73, 340, 2.27, and 0.001, respectively. Cronbach?s alpha coefficient for educational process, teamwork, communication, operating room infrastructure, and surgical skills education subscales were calculated to be 0.61, 0.61, 0.63, 0.70, and 0.72, respectively. Cronbach?s alpha coefficient for all items was 0.89. Results indicated acceptable construct validity and internal consistency of the scale.

The newly developed scale was proven as a reliable and valid measurement instrument that can be used within the Turkish health system setting for assessing and improving the educational climate in the operating room.