[Perceived self-efficacy scale on shared care planning (ACP-SEs) Argentina]

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Professionals
• Medical Education
• Patient Care

Background:

• Advance Care Planning (ACP) is a structured process for involving patients and their support systems.
• Health professionals face barriers when initiating ACP.
• Perceived self-efficacy is a key factor in successful learning and implementation of processes like ACP.

Purpose of the Study:

• To cross-culturally adapt the ACP self-efficacy scale into Spanish for use in Argentina (ACP-SEs).
• To evaluate the reliability and validity of the adapted ACP-SEs scale.
• To assess the self-efficacy of Argentinean health professionals in conducting ACP.

Main Methods:

• An exploratory instrumental study was conducted with health professionals caring for advanced chronic disease patients.
• The study involved linguistic adaptation and cognitive testing of the ACP-SEs instrument.
• Psychometric validation was performed on a purposive sample, analyzing sociodemographic variables and prior experience.

Main Results:

• The Spanish version of the scale (ACP-SEs Ar) was successfully developed after cognitive testing.
• A total of 236 professionals participated; 83% cared for advanced chronic disease patients.
• The scale exhibited high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.89), with significant differences noted between physicians and non-physicians on specific ACP-related questions.

Conclusions:

• The study successfully explored self-efficacy in Advance Care Planning among health professionals using the ACP-SEs Ar scale.
• This marks the first validation of the ACP self-efficacy scale in Argentina.