Assessing professionalism in mental health clinicians: development and validation of a situational judgement test

Situational judgement test (SJT) scores have been observed to predict actual workplace performance. They are commonly used to assess non-academic attributes as part of selection into many healthcare roles. However, no validated SJT yet exists for recruiting into mental health services.

To develop and validate an SJT that can evaluate procedural knowledge of professionalism in applicants to clinical roles in mental health services.

SJT item content was generated through interviews and focus groups with 56 professionals, patients and carers related to a large National Health Service mental health trust in England. These subject matter experts informed the content of the final items for the SJT. The SJT was completed by 73 registered nurses and 36 allied health professionals (AHPs). The primary outcome measure was supervisor ratings of professionalism and effectiveness on a relative percentile rating scale and was present for 69 of the participating nurses and AHPs. Personality assessment scores were reported as a secondary outcome.

SJT scores statistically significantly predicted ratings of professionalism (β = 0.31, P = 0.01) and effectiveness (β = 0.32, P = 0.01). The scores demonstrated statistically significant incremental predictive validity over the personality assessment scores for predicting supervisor ratings of professionalism (β = 0.26, P = 0.03).

These findings demonstrate that a carefully designed SJT can validly assess important personal attributes in clinicians working in mental health services. Such assessments are likely to represent evidence based, cost-effective tools that can support values-based recruitment to mental health service roles.