Open AccessA short scale for measuring attitudes towards the doctor-patient relationship: psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the German Patient-Practitioner-Orientation Scale (PPOS-D6)
Author(s) -
Roman Pauli,
Saskia Wilhelmy
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
peerj
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.927
H-Index - 70
ISSN - 2167-8359
DOI - 10.7717/peerj.12604
Subject(s) - scale (ratio) , german , measurement invariance , psychology , psychometrics , orientation (vector space) , scale invariance , clinical psychology , applied psychology , statistics , structural equation modeling , confirmatory factor analysis , mathematics , geography , cartography , geometry , archaeology
Background The Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale (PPOS) was originally developed to compare doctor’s and patient’s consensus regarding patient centeredness. Research assumed PPOS measurements to be comparable across different groups of participants, however, without assessing the actual validity of this assumption. In this study, we investigate the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of a short version of the German translation of the PPOS. Methods Based on a cross-sectional survey of N = 332 medical students, we present a short version of the German Patient-Practitioner-Orientation Scale (PPOS-D6) and examine its psychometric properties as well as measurement invariance across participants with varying levels of medical experience and gender using multigroup confirmatory factor analyses. Results Results indicate that PPOS-D6 provides valid and reliable measurements of patient-centeredness that are invariant across participants with different medical experience. Preliminary results also suggest invariance across gender. Conclusion PPOS-D6 is a suitable and efficient measure to compare group-specific attitudes towards the doctor-patient interaction. Additional research on convergent and discriminant validity and divergent study samples is advised.