An evaluation of the psychometric properties of the Australian Collaborative Practice Assessment Tool

• Published in: PloS one 2024-05, Vol.19 (5), p.e0302834-e0302834
• Main Authors: Ardyansyah, Bau Dilam, Cordier, Reinie, Brewer, Margo, Parsons, Dave
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Australia; Biology and Life Sciences; Collaboration; Communication; Communication skills; Conflict management; Conflict resolution; Consistency; Cooperative Behavior; Discriminant analysis; Empowerment; Engineering and Technology; Evaluation; Factor analysis; Female; Health care; Health care teams; Health Personnel - psychology; Health services; Humans; Interprofessional education; Interprofessional Relations; Invariance; Leadership; Male; Measures; Measuring instruments; Medical decision making; Medical personnel; Medical students; Medicine and Health Sciences; Patient satisfaction; Physical Sciences; Physicians; Pilot Projects; Professionals; Psychological aspects; Psychological research; Psychological tests; Psychometrics - methods; Quantitative psychology; Reproducibility of Results; Research and Analysis Methods; Social Sciences; Socialization; Students; Surveys and Questionnaires; Taxonomy; Teamwork; Validation studies; Validity; Work skills
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302834

This study aimed to validate the Collaborative Practice Assessment Tool (CPAT) in the Australian setting and provide a quality instrument in terms of psychometric properties that can be used to measure interprofessional outcomes for both healthcare practitioners and students. The outcomes evaluated include the capacity to work in an interprofessional team, good interprofessional communication skills, leadership skills, ensuring clear division of tasks and roles in a team, effective conflict management, and being actively involved with patients and their families/communities in care. The COSMIN (COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments) taxonomy and standards were used as guides for evaluating the psychometric properties of the Australian CPAT, which include evaluations regarding instrument development requirements of sample target and size, content validity, internal structure (structural validity, internal consistency reliability and measurement invariance), and hypotheses testing. CPAT Australia was developed through two stages involving pilot studies and a validation study, both of which included healthcare practitioners and students as participants. A pilot study examined content validity regarding item relevance, item comprehensibility, and instrument comprehensiveness. The validation study was carried out to assess the internal structure of CPAT Australia for aspects of structural validity, internal consistency reliabilities, and configural, metric and scalar measurement invariance. The structural validity was explored using the following three steps: exploratory, confirmatory, and multi-group factor analysis. Construct validity was evaluated to confirm direct and indirect paths of assumptions based on a previously validated model. Data collected between August 2021 and May 2022. The content validity evaluation confirmed that all items were relevant, understandable and comprehensive for measuring interprofessional collaborative care in Australia. Three hundred ninety-nine participants contributed to the validation study (n=152 practitioners; n=247 students). The original instrument model of 8-Factor 56-Item was improved in the Australian CPAT. Two items, Item 27 (Physicians assume the ultimate responsibility) and Item 49 (Final decision rest with the physician), were consistently rejected and therefore discarded. The internal structure of the 7-Factor 54-Item solution was confirmed as a suitable model with fit ind