Psychometric properties of Penn State Questionnaire on Professionalism (PSQP) in Iran: An instrument to assess attitudes toward professionalism

This study aimed to investigate the psychometric properties of the Persian version of Penn State Professionalism Questionnaire (first developed by Blackall et al 2007) to assess attitudes toward professionalism. This psychometric study was conducted through cluster random sampling on N=340 of medical students of medical universities in Iran. To determine the psychometric properties of the questionnaire, the Persian version of PSQP was developed for cultural adaptation based on international guidelines. Face, content, and construct validity and reliability were assessed. Out of the 340 participants in this study, 144 (42.2%) were male and 197 (57.8%) were female. The average age was between 24 and 30 years (89.4%). The mean ratio and index of content validity were calculated to be 0.9. The reliability of questionnaire was above 0.85. The highest correlation was between the variable of professionalism and the altruism subscale (0.92) while the lowest correlation was with excellence subscale (0.87). The correlation between subscales of PSQP was 0.825, which is at a high level. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed using Varimax rotation on the 35 components, which showed that there are six subscales with high eigenvalue in which scale questions are loaded. It was found that the PSQP has acceptable validity and reliability in the Iranian society. The PSQP can be used to assess the attitudes toward professionalism. It is a suitable self-assessment tool to assess attitudes toward professionalism in medical students.