Measuring Health Professionals' Skills and Self-Efficacy for Communicating with Individuals with Disabilities:...

Area of Science:

• Health equity
• Disability studies
• Healthcare communication

Background:

• Individuals with disabilities face significant health disparities and barriers to care.
• Effective communication is crucial for quality healthcare but often lacking.
• Existing tools for assessing healthcare professionals' communication skills with disabled individuals are limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate an instrument measuring health professionals' communication skills and self-efficacy.
• To address the need for reliable assessment tools in training and practice.

Main Methods:

• Literature review and expert review of scale items.
• Pilot testing and administration of a 19-item survey to 237 professionals.
• Exploratory factor analysis for construct validity and Cronbach's alpha for internal consistency.

Main Results:

• A final 18-item inventory was developed.
• The skills subscale showed a Cronbach's alpha of .919.
• The self-efficacy subscale demonstrated a Cronbach's alpha of .949.

Conclusions:

• The validated 18-item inventory exhibits strong reliability and validity.
• This tool can effectively measure health professionals' communication skills and self-efficacy with individuals with disabilities.
• The instrument can aid in improving training programs and addressing communication barriers in healthcare.