Psychometric analysis of the Swedish version of the General Medical Council's multi source feedback questionnaires

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the internal consistency and the underlying components of our translated and adapted Swedish version of the General Medical Council's multisource feedback questionnaires (GMC questionnaires) for physicians and to confirm which aspects of good medical practice the latent variable structure reflected.

Methods: From October 2015 to March 2016, residents in family medicine in Sweden were invited to participate in the study and to use the Swedish version to perform self-evaluations and acquire feedback from both their patients and colleagues. The validation focused on internal consistency and construct validity. Main outcome measures were Cronbach's alpha coefficients, Principal Component Analysis, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis indices.

Results: A total of 752 completed questionnaires from patients, colleagues, and residents were analysed. Of these, 213 comprised resident self-evaluations, 336 were feedback from residents' patients, and 203 were feedback from residents' colleagues. Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the scores were 0.88 from patients, 0.93 from colleagues, and 0.84 in the self-evaluations. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis validated two models that fit the data reasonably well and reflected important aspects of good medical practice. The first model had two latent factors for patient-related items concerning empathy and consultation management, and the second model had five latent factors for colleague-related items, including knowledge and skills, attitude and approach, reflection and development, teaching, and trust.

Conclusions: The current Swedish version seems to be a reliable and valid tool for formative assessment for resident physicians and their supervisors. This needs to be verified in larger samples.

Keywords: assessment; factor analysis; multisource feedback questionnaires; physicians; validation.

Figure 1

The structure of the adapted Swedish version of the three GMC questionnaires. The self-evaluation questionnaire SQ consists of two parts, colleague-related items (SCQ) and patient-related items (SPQ). Corresponding items in the colleague questionnaire CQ and the patient questionnaire PQ are marked with arrows.