Assessment of the modified attitudes toward health care teams scale using item response theory analysis

The modified Attitudes Toward Health Care Teams Scale (mATHCTS) is a self-administered questionnaire with 14 items to assess participants' perceptions of the impact of interprofessional collaboration. Its validity and reliability have been widely evaluated. The effect of interprofessional education (IPE) has been evaluated using changes in mATHCTS factor scores. However, several aspects of the scale require clarification: the difficulty of correctly answering each item; how well each item discriminates between respondents' abilities; and whether the mATHCTS is better at identifying those with higher/lower abilities. We investigated the mATHCTS's item characteristics such as difficulty, discrimination, and measurement accuracy using item-response theory (IRT) analysis. Health and welfare university students were administered a questionnaire prior to starting IPE in 2021. The results for 180 participants were analyzed based on IRT. The test-response (TRF) and test-information (TIF) functions, discrimination, and difficulty were estimated. All items' discrimination and difficulty were adequate. The TRF, which shows the relationship between scores and ability, increased monotonically. The TIF, which shows the relationship between ability and measurement accuracy, decreased as the total score increased. The mATHCTS effectively assessed participants' attitudes toward health care teams as a one-dimensional ability. The mATHCTS performed well in identifying participants with relatively low scores.