Development of Scales to Assess Patients’ Perception of Physicians’ Cultural Competence in Health Care Interactions

Abstract

This study describes the development of scales to measure patients’ perception of physicians’ cultural competence in health care interactions and thus contributes to promoting awareness of physician–patient intercultural interaction processes. Surveys were administrated to a total of 682 participants. Exploratory factor analyses were employed to assess emergent scales and subscales to develop reliable instruments. The first two phases were devoted to formative research and pilot study. The third phase was devoted to scale development, which resulted in a five-factor solution to measure patient perception of physicians’ cultural competence for patient satisfaction.