Financial Anxiety, Financial Self-Efficacy, and General Social Support Among Physical Therapy Students: Reliability of Assessments.

Background: Educational debt continues to increase across the health professions. Assessment tools for financial self-efficacy and social support have not been evaluated for reliability among any group of health professions students, though research suggests they may mitigate financial anxiety. This study assesses the reliability of tools measuring financial anxiety, financial self-efficacy, and general social support in a graduate health profession student population.

Methods: The Financial Anxiety Scale (FAS), Financial Self-Efficacy Scale (FSES), and General Social Support Scale (GSSS) were completed by 510 physical therapist students. Item response theory was used to assess reliability and item fit for each assessment.

Results: All studied measures are reliable and demonstrate good item fit among the population of physical therapist students in the United States. The analysis showed that the three scales meet the conditions for a good fit with the data, that their general factors explain a sufficient proportion of the variance, and that the psychometric properties of individual items are acceptable.

Conclusions: The FAS and FSES provide a large amount of test information for physical therapist students. The GSSS, by contrast, may be best utilized as a screening tool for those who have very low levels of general social support.