OBJECTIVE: To determine the validity and reliability of the PPCI for physicians in Malaysia.
SETTING: An urban tertiary hospital in Malaysia.
METHODS: This prospective study was conducted from June to August 2014. Doctors were grouped as either a "collaborator" or a "non-collaborator". Collaborators were doctors who regularly worked with one particular clinical pharmacist in their ward, while non-collaborators were doctors who interacted with any random pharmacist who answered the general pharmacy telephone line whenever they required assistance on medication-related enquiries, as they did not have a clinical pharmacist in their ward. Collaborators were firstly identified by the clinical pharmacist he/she worked with, then invited to participate in this study through email, as it was difficult to locate and approach them personally. Non-collaborators were sampled conveniently by approaching them in person as these doctors could be easily sampled from any wards without a clinical pharmacist. The PPCI for physicians was administered at baseline and 2 weeks later.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Validity (face validity, factor analysis and discriminative validity) and reliability (internal consistency and test-retest) of the PPCI for physicians.
RESULTS: A total of 116 doctors (18 collaborators and 98 non-collaborators) were recruited. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the PPCI for physicians was a 3-factor model. The correlation of the mean domain scores ranged from 0.711 to 0.787. "Collaborators" had significantly higher scores compared to "non-collaborators" (81.4 ± 10.1 vs. 69.3 ± 12.1, p < 0.001). The Cronbach alpha for the overall PPCI for physicians was 0.949, while the Cronbach alpha values for the individual domains ranged from 0.877 to 0.926. Kappa values at test-retest ranged from 0.553 to 0.752.
CONCLUSION: The PPCI for physicians was a valid and reliable measure in determining doctors' views about collaborative working relationship with pharmacists, in Malaysia.
METHODS: A 28-item instrument which comprised of 5 domains: diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, medications and general issues was designed and tested. One point was given for every correct answer, whilst zero was given for incorrect answers. Scores ranged from 0 to 28, which were then converted into percentage. This was administered to 77 patients with type 2 diabetes in a tertiary hospital, who were on medication(s) for diabetes and who could understand English (patient group), and to 40 pharmacists (professional group). The DHL knowledge instrument was administered again to the patient group after one month. Excluded were patients less than 18 years old.
RESULTS: Flesch reading ease was 60, which is satisfactory, while the mean difficulty factor(SD) was 0.74(0.21), indicating that DHL knowledge instrument was moderately easy. Internal consistency of the instrument was good, with Cronbach's α = 0.791. The test-retest scores showed no significant difference for 26 out of the 28 items, indicating that the questionnaire has achieved stable reliability. The overall mean(SD) knowledge scores was significantly different between the patient and professional groups [74.35(14.88) versus 93.84(6.47), p < 0.001]. This means that the DHL knowledge instrument could differentiate the knowledge levels of participants. The DHL knowledge instrument shows similar psychometric properties as other validated questionnaires.
CONCLUSIONS: The DHL knowledge instrument shows good promise to be adopted as an instrument for assessing diabetic patients' knowledge concerning their disease conditions and medications in Malaysia.