Associate Professor, Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Worldviews Evid Based Nurs. 2014 Feb;11(1):35-45. doi: 10.1111/wvn.12018. Epub 2013 Oct 15.
Health policymakers work in organizations that involve multiple competing demands and limited time to make decisions. Influential international policy organizations continue to publish guidance and recommendations without the use of high-quality research evidence. Few studies have described the process with which governments, including health ministries, use evidence to support health policymaking decisions. Research is needed to better understand the psychometric properties of instruments that assess health policy organizations' capacity to use research evidence.
The purpose of this study was to assess the preliminary psychometric properties of an instrument which assesses organizational capacity for evidence use.
The instrument was administered by telephone survey from January to June 2011 using a purposeful sample of 57 Canadian health policymakers (policy analyst and senior management levels). Reliability of the instrument was assessed with Cronbach's α coefficient and item-to-total correlation for internal consistency; interitem coefficients were used to identify particular item redundancy. Discriminant validity was assessed using the known-group comparison approach, with the independent sample t-test to assess subscale responses of policy analysts and senior managers.
Cronbach's α indicated acceptable internal consistency across its subscales. Discriminant validity analysis revealed a statistically significant difference between policy analysts and senior managers for one subscale.
Our study provides a first look at the Self-assessment for Organizational Capacity Instrument's psychometric properties and demonstrates that this instrument can be useful when evaluating government and other organizations' use of evidence to inform decision making. Further testing of this instrument is needed using large and varied samples of policymakers, from policy analysts to senior managers, across varied policymaking contexts. This instrument can be a starting point for government and related organizations to better understand how well it supports evidence use, including its acquisition, appraisal, and use in health policy decision making.
卫生政策制定者在涉及多种相互竞争的需求和有限的决策时间的组织中工作。有影响力的国际政策组织继续发布指导意见和建议，而不使用高质量的研究证据。很少有研究描述过政府（包括卫生部）使用证据支持卫生决策制定的过程。需要研究来更好地了解评估卫生政策组织使用研究证据能力的工具的心理测量学特性。
本研究旨在评估评估组织使用证据能力的工具的初步心理测量特性。
该工具于 2011 年 1 月至 6 月通过电话调查以目的抽样的方式对 57 名加拿大卫生政策制定者（政策分析师和高级管理层）进行了调查。采用 Cronbach's α 系数和项目与总分的相关性来评估工具的信度，以评估内部一致性；采用项目间系数来识别特定项目的冗余度。采用已知群体比较方法评估判别有效性，采用独立样本 t 检验评估政策分析师和高级管理人员的子量表反应。
Cronbach's α 表明各子量表的内部一致性可接受。判别有效性分析表明，政策分析师和高级管理人员在一个子量表上存在统计学上的显著差异。
我们的研究首次考察了自我评估组织能力工具的心理测量特性，并表明当评估政府和其他组织使用证据为决策提供信息时，该工具非常有用。需要使用来自政策分析师到高级管理人员的不同政策制定背景的大量和多样化的政策制定者样本进一步测试该工具。该工具可以作为政府和相关组织的起点，以更好地了解其支持证据使用的程度，包括其在卫生政策决策中的获取、评估和使用。
