Assessment of Resident Physicians in Professionalism, Interpersonal and Communication Skills: a Multisource Feedback

Objective: To assess the internal validity and reliability of a multisource feedback (MSF) program by China Medical Board for resident physicians in China. Method: Multisource feedback was used to assess professionalism, interpersonal and communication skills. 258 resident physicians were assessed by attending doctors, self-evaluation, resident peers, nurses, office staffs, and patients who completed a sealed questionnaire at 19 hospitals in China. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to assess reliability. Validity was assessed by exploratory factor analyses and by profile ratings. Results: 4128 questionnaires were collected from this study. All responses had high internal consistency and reliability (Cronbach's α> 0.90), which suggests that both questions and form data were internally consistent. The exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation for the evaluators' questionnaires was able to account for 70 to 74% of the total variance. Conclusion: The current MSF assessment tools are internally valid and reliable for assessing resident physician professionalism and interpersonal and communication skills in China.