Design and Development of a Self-Report Competence Scale for The Assessment of Prehospital Health Professionals' Competence in Response to Radiological Events.
Disaster medicine and public health preparedness · 2025-01-03 · Method & validation
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to develop a self-report scale for the assessment of the competence of pre-hospital health professionals in responding to radiological incidents. METHODS: Based on the findings of a systematic review analyzing the literature, the instrument followed the processes of item generation, expert opinion, language control, pilot study, and field testing. RESULTS: In the exploratory factor analysis, 48 items were excluded on the grounds of insufficient common variance (>0.40) and factor loading relationship (>0.50). The remaining 18 items (11 negative and 7 positive items) exhibited a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.913 and a range of 0.740 to 0.887 in the sub-factors. As the scores on the developed scale increased, there was a corresponding increase in the perceived adequacy of the interventions. CONCLUSIONS: The objective, scope, constraints and stages of the scale's design and development were elucidated in comprehensive detail, and its intelligibility to other societies was ensured. The scale was developed as a self-report scale that can evaluate the competence of prehospital health professionals in radiological incidents.