Validation of an Instrument Designed to Assess Medical Student Attitudes Toward Home Care

OBJECTIVES: To develop and validate an instrument to assess medical students' attitudes toward home care. DESIGN: Survey administration before and following participation in a home care training program. SETTING: Five medical schools in the United States. PARTICIPANTS: 326 third and fourth year medical students. MEASUREMENTS: Factor analysis was performed on all posttests. Domains were tested for internal reliability (Chronbach's alpha). Interdomain correlation was tested. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to determine whether the results for each domain differed among the five programs. RESULTS: Using exploratory factor analysis, the original 20-item survey was revised to yield a 14-item survey consisting of four domains (general attitudes, home-based therapies, home care training, and time and reimbursement). Domain intra-item reliability ranged from 0.60 to 0.82. Interdomain correlations were found to be significant with the exception of one comparison (time and reimbursement and home care training). One-way ANOVA showed significant differences between the training programs for two of the four domains (home-based therapies and home care training). For a third domain, time and reimbursement, there was a trend toward differences across the schools (P = 0.06). CONCLUSION: The instrument described in this paper is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing the impact of home care training on medical student attitudes across a series of important domains.