Development and Validation of Narrative Competence Scale for Medical Students

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Narrative Medicine
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Narrative competence enhances physician skills like empathy and patient-centered care.
• Lack of systematic research and measurable indicators for narrative competence assessment.
• Need for a validated tool to assess narrative competence in medical students.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a narrative competence scale for medical students.
• To provide a measurable tool for assessing narrative competence in medical education.

Main Methods:

• Developed a 57-item draft scale with four dimensions and eleven sub-dimensions.
• Conducted three rounds of the Delphi method with eleven narrative medicine experts.
• Pilot tested with 200 medical students and used Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Cronbach's alpha for validation.

Main Results:

• The Delphi method refined the scale and sub-dimension definitions.
• CFA confirmed a good fit for the four-factor model (RMSEA=0.055, SRMR=0.045, GFI=0.911, NFI=0.926, IFI=0.971, CFI=0.970).
• The scale demonstrated excellent internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's α range: 0.797-0.942, overall α=0.972).

Conclusions:

• The Narrative Competence Scale for Medical Students (NCS-MS) effectively evaluates medical students' narrative competence.
• The NCS-MS serves as a valuable assessment tool for narrative medicine research and curriculum development.
• Facilitates the integration of narrative medicine principles into medical education and practice.