Development of the Health Humanities Competence Scale for Multidisciplinary Healthcare Professional Students

Healthcare professionals often require a greater awareness of health and humanities than others. However, a Health Humanities Competence Scale (HHCS) for medical university healthcare professional students (HPS) has not been established yet.

This study aims to provide original, reliable, and valid measures for a HHCS for HPS that reflects the humanistic abilities of multidisciplinary healthcare professional students towards themselves, their families, and their professional relationships.

An observational design was adopted in this study. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to extract the factors of health humanities competence, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to confirm reliability and validity, through a model fit assessment.

PCA identified three factors in the HHCS for HPS: self, family, and profession-related health and humanities, which explained 24.78%, 21.98%, and 18.67% of the variance, respectively. The final 19-item instrument with the three factors explained 65.44% of the total variance. The Cronbach's alpha value was 0.92. Additionally, CFA identified a second-order factor, HHCS for HPS. Overall, the goodness-of-fit indices indicated a satisfactory fit of the entire model (χ²/df = 1.31, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.069, Comparative Fit Index = 0.94, Tucker-Lewis Index = 0.93). Additionally, the HHCS for HPS scores were significantly and positively correlated with the empathy subscale scores of the Communication Effectiveness Profile (r = 0.63, p < 0.01). Therefore, the results reveal that the HHCS for HPS demonstrates strong convergent validity.

The original three factors (19 items) demonstrated support for use by university healthcare students. A larger sample could strengthen the reliability and validity of the scale. However, the three-factor model is a useful measurement tool for assessing the demonstration of health humanities competencies by healthcare professional students.