[Validity and reliability of an instrument to assess the clinical interviews of residents in family and community medicine: the GATHA-RES questionnaire].

OBJECTIVE

To check the validity of content, the internal consistency and the intra-observer reliability of a questionnaire to evaluate the doctor-patient communication of family medicine residents.

DESIGN

Observation study, to validate a measurement instrument.

SETTING

Primary care. Family and community medicine teaching units.

STUDY POPULATION

For the validity analysis: 25 family and community medicine residents. For the reliability analysis: 48 doctors in the same speciality.

MEASUREMENTS AND INTERVENTIONS

The questionnaire was constructed on the basis of a version (GATHA-BASE) composed of 42 items selected by a panel of 60 general practitioners. For content validity, 68 clinical encounters with simulated patients, video-recorded and evaluated, were used. The questionnaire's validity content was studied through a factorial analysis. To measure its internal consistency, Cronbach's alpha coefficients were calculated. Intra-observer reliability of the GATHA-RES version was evaluated through the kappa indexes and the intra-class correlation coefficients.

RESULTS

We obtained a version of the GATHA-RES with 27 items. The factorial analysis revealed that there were 9 factors (<>, <>, <>, <>, <>, <<miscellaneous 1>>, <<miscellaneous 2>> and <>) which showed close correlation with the theoretical and formal contents of the original questionnaire (originally grouped in three sections: attitudes, communication tasks and skills). All the intraclass correlation coefficients had figures > or = 0.90.

CONCLUSIONS

The GATHA-RES questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument that can be used for evaluating the communication skills of general practitioners in training.