Development and Validation of Psychological Contract Scale for Hospital Pharmacists

OBJECTIVE: To set up a psychological contract scale for hospital pharmacists to strengthen the management of pharmacists and improve the occupational health of pharmacists. METHODS: A psychological contract scale for hospital pharmacists with structured questionnaires was designed according to the professional characteristics of hospital pharmacists and validated through the investigation of pharmacists in 77 public medical institutions in Zunyi, China, which were included through stratified random sampling. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity were used to assess the suitability of the sample for factor analysis. Validity of the dimensions was investigated with exploratory factor analysis. The principal component analysis and varimax rotation methods were used to identify the factor structure. The internal consistency was assessed by the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. RESULTS: The psychological contract scale for hospital pharmacists was composed of pharmacists’ perceptions regarding the hospital, pharmacists themselves, and government/society responsibility. The KMO values of the three perceptions were 0.957, 0.930 and 0.917, respectively, all greater than 0.6. The significance probability of the Bartlett spherical test was 0.000, indicating good structural validity. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and half coefficient of the responsibilities in three sub-scales were all greater than 0.6, indicating good internal reliability of the scale. The average scores of the pharmacist responsibility, the hospital responsibility and the government/society responsibility in the pharmacists’ perception were 5.42±0.637, 4.64±1.069 and 4.49±1.134, respectively. In the pharmacists’ perception, their own responsibility has been better fulfilled than those of hospitals and government/society. CONCLUSION: The psychological contract scale for hospital pharmacists can be a useful tool to evaluate the psychological contract of hospital pharmacists for research and occupational health assessments and management in the area of hospital pharmacy.