{Reference Type}: Journal Article
{Title}: Assessing professional behaviors: a self-administered scale for medical students during clerkships.
{Author}: Xin C;Song X;Wang S;Cui X;Ding N;Wen D;
{Journal}: BMC Med Educ
{Volume}: 24
{Issue}: 1
{Year}: 2024 Jun 26
{Factor}: 3.263
{DOI}: 10.1186/s12909-024-05676-9
{Abstract}: <B>BACKGROUND: </B>Medical professionalism is a core competency for medical students during clerkships for further professional development. Given that the behavior-based framework could provide clear insight and is easy to assess, the study aimed to create a self-administered scale to measure the professional behaviors of medical students during their clerkships.<BR><B>METHODS: </B>A comprehensive literature review on medical professional behaviors in English or Chinese and Delphi interviews were used to develop the initial version of the Self-Administered Scale for Professional Behavior of Medical Students During Clerkships. The reliability and validity analysis based on a survey of medical students from China, Cronbach's α calculations, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) specifically were conducted to finalize the scale. The associations of professional behaviors with gender, medical programs, and clerkship duration were examined using Wilcoxon rank-sum tests.<BR><B>RESULTS: </B>We included 121 studies and extracted 57 medical professionalism assessment tools, initially forming a pool of 48 items. To refine these items, eighteen experts participated in two rounds of Delphi interviews, ultimately narrowing down the item pool to 24 items. A total of 492 participants effectively completed the questionnaire. One item was removed due to its correlated item-total correlation (CITC) value, resulting in a final scale containing 23 items with six domains: Respect, Altruism, Communication and Collaboration, Integrity, Duty, and Excellence. The overall Cronbach's alpha value was 0.98, ranging from 0.88 to 0.95 for each domain. The fit indices (χ2/df = 4.07, CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.08, and SRMR = 0.02) signified a good fit for the six-domain model. Medical students' professional behavior was significantly associated with gender (p = 0.03) and clerkship duration (p = 0.001).<BR><B>CONCLUSIONS: </B>The scale was demonstrated to be reliable and valid in assessing the professional behaviors of Chinese medical students during clerkships.