Determining the psychometric properties of a written test to assess safe dental practice

Abstract

Introduction: Safe practice in medicine and dentistry has been a global priority area in which large knowledge gaps are present.Patient safety strategies aim at preventing unintended damage to patients that can be caused by healthcare practitioners. One of the components of patient safety is safe clinical practice. Patient safety efforts will help in ensuring safe dental practice for early detection and limiting non-preventable errors.A valid and reliable instrument is required to assess the knowledge of dental students regarding patient safety.

Objective: To determine the psychometric properties of a written test to assess safe dental practice in undergraduate dental students.

Material and methods: A test comprising 42 multiple-choice questions of one-best type was administered to final year students (52) of a private dental college. Items were developed according to National Board of Medical Examiners item writing guidelines. The content of the test was determined in consultation with dental experts (either professor or associate professor). These experts had to assess each item on the test for language clarity as A: clear, B: ambiguous and relevance as 1: essential, 2: useful, not necessary, 3: not essential. Ethical approval was taken from the concerned dental college. Statistical analysis was done in SPSS V.25 in which descriptive analysis, item analysis and Cronbach's alpha were measured.

Result: The test scores had a reliability (calculated by Cronbach's alpha) of 0.722 before and 0.855 after removing 15 items.

Conclusion: A reliable and valid test was developed which will help to assess the knowledge of dental students regarding safe dental practice. This can guide medical educationist to develop or improve patient safety curriculum to ensure safe dental practice.

Keywords: Diagnostic errors; Medical error, measurement/epidemiology; Medication safety; Patient safety; Safety culture.