Development of Assessment Tool to Measure Soft Skills of Healthcare Providers

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The objective of the study is to develop and validate an assessment tool to measure soft skills in the performance of healthcare providers during patient encounters in primary care settings. The assessment tool will address a gap in performance measurement systems of healthcare providers and patient surveys about soft skills that most influence the way service is delivered and perceived during provider-patient interactions. In this study, the Iceberg Model of Managerial Competencies was used to define the construct and develop a conceptual model of soft skills. Soft skills are commonly referred to as bedside manner. METHODS: The study implemented a mixed methods approach. The first phase used qualitative focus groups and semi-structured personal interviews to collect primary data from 62 participants from users (n=35) and providers (n=27) of healthcare services using a purposeful and snowball sampling strategies. Quantitative surveys were utilized to examine content and face validity. The first refined draft of the assessment tool was developed and obtained content and face validity through conducting qualitative focus groups and semi-structured personal interviews with six subject matter experts and a quantitative survey of 14 individuals representing users of healthcare services. Subject matter experts were recruited using purposeful sampling strategy, and users of healthcare services were recruited using availability sample from the target population. Ongoing data collection using a quantitative survey will further inform the factorial structure of the scale. RESULTS: Ten soft skills were identified as the most essential soft skills for provider-patient interaction in primary care setting. A pool of 198 items were generated from the content analysis process. The final refined draft of the assessment tool consists of 49 items rated on 6-point Likert-type scale, measuring Verbal (personal) and non-verbal communication (15 items), empathy (5 items), compassion (4 items), caring (6 items), listening (5 items), respect (4 items), friendliness (4 items), and trust (6 items). CONCLUSION: The scale obtained excellent content validity with S-CVI/Ave = .96, and S-CVI/UA = .92. Psychometric evaluation of score reliability and construct validity for the final draft of the assessment tool will be reported.N