A study of physician-patient relationship perceived risk measurement of physician: questionnaire development and reliability testing

Abstract

Abstract Purpose: This study investigates the structure of physicians' perceived risk of physician-patient relationship from physicians' perspective, compiles the physician-patient relationship perceived risk questionnaire, provides a reliable measurement tool for quantitative research on physician-patient relationship in China, and can lay the theoretical foundation for quantitative control of physician-patient relationship risk.Methods: The initial questionnaire was formed by using literature research, expert correspondence method and applying relevant statistical analysis methods. 553 physicians were conducted to questionnaire survey, and the stability and internal consistency of the questionnaire were tested by item analysis, exploratory factor analysis and other statistical analysis.Results: Through exploratory factor analysis, we used principal component analysis and the maximum variation method in the orthogonal axis method. The final scale consisted of 4 dimensions and 16 items. The highest loadings of each factor were >0.40. The overall Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.794. All indicators of confirmatory factor analysis and the fitting test of structural model were within the standard range, indicating that the questionnaire has good construct validity. The correlation coefficients of all four factors are less than the square root value of AVE, and absolute values are all less than 0.5, indicating that the factors were correlated and differentiated from each other, which means that the scale data had good discriminant validity.Conclusion: The physician perceived risk of physician-patient relationship questionnaire developed in this study has good reliability and validity. It can be used as assessment tool to measure the perceived risk of physician in physician-patient relationship.