Development and psychometric assessment of a scale for evaluating healthcare professionals' attitudes toward interprofessional education and collaboration in the United States: a cross-sectional study.

Abstract

Purpose: Interprofessional education (IPE) is increasingly recognized as critical to preparing health professionals for collaborative practice, yet rigorous assessment remains limited by a lack of psychometrically sound instruments. Building on a previously developed questionnaire for physicians, this study aimed to expand the scale to include allied health professionals and to evaluate whether the factor structure remained consistent across professions. We hypothesized that a similar factor structure would emerge from the combined dataset, thereby supporting the scale's generalizability.

Methods: This observational study included 930 healthcare professionals in the United States (379 physicians, 419 nurses, 76 pharmacists, and others) who completed a 35-item questionnaire addressing IPE competency domains. Data were collected between December 2019 and May 2020. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to examine the factor structure, followed by item response theory (IRT) analyses to assess item fit, reliability, and validity. Raw data are available upon request.

Results: Factor analysis of 22 retained items confirmed a 5-factor solution: teamwork and communication, patient-centered care, roles and responsibilities, ethics and attitudes, and reflective practice, explaining 59% of the variance. Subscale reliabilities ranged from α=0.65 to 0.87. IRT analyses supported construct validity and measurement precision, while identifying areas for refinement in reflective practice.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the scale is reliable, valid, and generalizable across diverse health professions. It provides a robust tool for assessing attitudes toward IPE, offering value for curriculum evaluation, institutional benchmarking, and future longitudinal research on professional identity formation and collaborative practice.