Development, Reliability, and Structural Validity of the Scale for Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice in Ethics...

Area of Science:

• Medical Artificial Intelligence
• Bioethics
• Research Methodology

Background:

• Medical AI is crucial for healthcare decision support, necessitating ethical considerations.
• Implementing ethics in medical AI requires researchers' knowledge, attitude, and practice.
• A validated instrument to measure these ethical aspects in medical AI researchers was lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a comprehensive scale for assessing the knowledge, attitude, and practice of ethics implementation among medical AI researchers.
• To evaluate the measurement properties of the developed scale.

Main Methods:

• The Knowledge-Attitude-Practice in Ethics Implementation (KAP-EI) scale was developed based on the KAP model.
• Scale development involved systematic literature review, qualitative interviews, and item analysis.
• Measurement properties were evaluated using cross-sectional studies adhering to COSMIN guidelines.

Main Results:

• The KAP-EI scale comprises three dimensions: knowledge (10 items), attitude (6 items), and practice (7 items).
• The scale demonstrated high reliability (Cronbach's α = .934).
• Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed satisfactory structural validity with good fit indices.

Conclusions:

• The KAP-EI scale is a reliable and structurally valid instrument for measuring ethical knowledge, attitude, and practice in medical AI researchers.
• This represents the first instrument specifically designed for this purpose.
• The scale can facilitate the effective implementation of ethics in medical AI research and development.