Abstract
Background: Self-assessment of competency in CME/CPD has been fully approved by the American Medical Association (AMA) in its program of retention of practice certificates. To be accepted and applicable in the CME/CPD course in Vietnam, the scale of self-efficacy or self-assessment of competency requires modification. It is helpful for the future studies related to the ECHO courses that the scale of self-efficacy or self-assessment of competency are applied with its respect to validity and reliability.
Aims: In the current study, we aimed to introduce the theoretical framework for developing a set of scales to facilitate self-assessment of professional capacity among PHWs participating in project ECHO. Additionally, we proposed a viable method for creating a self-efficacy scale applicable to the continuing medical training programs. We hypothesized that the scale of efficacy would integrate into the research and evaluation procedure at VNCH.
Methods: We applied a cross-sectional study design, implementing mixed methods including quantitative and qualitative in order to adjust the scale of self-efficacy to assess the professional capacity improvement of the healthcare workers to ensure the validity and reliability of the scale. The study proceeds in the following steps: 1) Reviewing the sets of scales for self-assessment of competency (self-efficacy) according to the ECHO model in the world; 2) Collecting the decisions from the panel of experts to determine the content of primary scale to improve professional capacity through continuous medical training; 3) Test the scale on a sample of learners participating in a continuing medical training program using the ECHO model; 4) Evaluate the surface validity, the content of validity including the convergent value and discriminant value and the structural reliability with Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency index.
Conclusion: The 22-item self-assessment of competency scale was developed based on the results of qualitative and quantitative research, and is considered to be a reliable scale applicable to further studies on the ECHO model in Vietnam.