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BACKGROUND: The healthcare sector is a labor-intensive service domain that operates on the basis of multidisciplinary collaboration. Effective service delivery in this field is not solely dependent on individual expertise, but also closely linked to the cooperation and cohesion established among team members. Team cohesion plays a critical role in various aspects, including patient safety, quality of care, team performance, and the prevention of medical errors. Particularly in healthcare services, where human life is directly at stake, the importance of team cohesion becomes even more evident in ensuring effective and safe care delivery. In this context, the present study aimed to validate the Turkish version of the Erlangen Team Cohesion at Work Scale and to assess the level of team cohesion among paramedics. METHODS: This methodological study was conducted between June 15 and July 15, 2024, with 219 paramedics who are members of the Association of Paramedics and Prehospital Emergency Medicine. To validate the Turkish version of the Erlangen Team Cohesion at Work Scale, the following procedures were carried out: For content validity: cultural adaptation, linguistic and content validation, and a pilot study. For construct validity: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). For reliability: Cronbach's alpha, item-total correlations, split-half reliability, and test-retest reliability analyses. RESULTS: The Turkish version of the scale, consisting of 12 items under a single factor, demonstrated excellent psychometric properties: Cronbach's alpha = 0.93; KMO = 0.94; explained variance = 59.76%. The fit indices from CFA were: χ²/df = 2.5, RMSEA = 0.08, SRMR = 0.04, GFI = 0.90, NFI = 0.93, RFI = 0.90, IFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, and CFI = 0.95. These findings confirmed that the Turkish version of the Erlangen Team Cohesion at Work Scale has high content and construct validity as well as strong reliability. Additionally, the paramedics who participated in the study were found to have a high level of team cohesion, with a mean score of 2.86 ± 0.63. CONCLUSION: The Turkish version of the Erlangen Team Cohesion at Work Scale demonstrated robust validity and reliability, supporting its applicability among healthcare professionals in Turkey. Furthermore, the high cohesion levels observed among paramedics highlight the presence of effective collaborative dynamics in prehospital emergency medical services.
Uysal et al. (Fri,) studied this question.