Development and validation of a questionnaire measuring knowledge, attitudes, and current practices of primary healthcare physicians regarding road injury prevention in older adults

Abstract

Background Older adults present high risk of involvement in road crashes. Preventive interventions conducted by their primary healthcare physicians (PHPC) could reduce this public health issue. Objective The objective of this study was to design and validate a self-administered questionnaire that measures the knowledge, attitudes, and current practices (CP) of PHCP in Spain regarding the prevention of road injuries in older adults. Methods One thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven PHCP completed a questionnaire piloted previously in an expert panel and two convenience samples of physicians. It comprised 78 items grouped in five sections and was mainly focused on exploring three constructs: knowledge, attitudes, and CP. Exploratory factor analysis was used to obtain evidence of internal structure validity. Reliability was assessed through Cronbach’s α coefficient. Correlation coefficients for the scores constructed for each of the extracted factors were calculated to assess convergent and discriminant validity. Results Factor analysis extracted four factors each for the knowledge and attitudes constructs, and three factors for the CP construct, which explained more than 55% of the variance in each construct. Except for two factors of the knowledge construct regarding existing health problems associated to the risk of involvement in road crashes, the clustering pattern of all other items across the remaining nine factors was consistent and in agreement with previous knowledge. Cronbach’s α values were greater than 0.7 for all constructs. Conclusions Our questionnaire appears to be valid enough to assess the attitudes, CP, and medication-related knowledge of PHCP in Spain regarding the prevention of road injuries in older adults.

Medications and traffic accidents involving older drivers: do Spanish primary healthcare physicians know enough?

“…The objective of said questionnaire was to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes and strategies for the prevention of traffic accidents in elderly drivers carried out by FD. The knowledge and strategies evaluated specifically include those referring to the consumption of drugs that may increase the risk of suffering a TA [ 28 ]. Briefly, the target population consisted of all FD working in Spain at primary healthcare centres or emergency services.…”

“…Originally, these 11 groups pertained to two categories defined a priori on the basis of our literature review: drugs associated with a high risk of interfering with fitness to drive (antiepileptics, antihistamines, benzodiazepines and muscle relaxants, codeine-based cough suppressants, and opioid analgesics), and those not associated with a high risk of interfering with driving ability (antiplatelet agents, antianginal agents, beta blockers, insulin and/or oral antidiabetics, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors [ACEIs] and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [NSAIDs]) [ 12 , 21 , 29 – 34 ]. During the process of questionnaire validation [ 28 ], factor analysis of the items in this part of the questionnaire disclosed that when the “insulin and/or oral antidiabetics” group was excluded, the remaining drugs or groups of medications were distributed in two factors that corresponded to the two groups defined a priori. For each group an average index was obtained by dividing the sum of the scores for all items in each group by 5: low-risk drug index (LRDI) and high-risk drug index (HRDI).…”

Attitudes, Beliefs, and Current Practices Carried Out by Family Physicians in Spain Regarding the Prevention of Road Injuries in Older Adults: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study

“…The study design is detailed in a previous work. 33 The objective of this study was to design and validate a self-administered questionnaire that measures the knowledge, attitudes and current practices (CP) of FPs in Spain regarding the prevention of road injuries in older adults. As a result, our questionnaire showed acceptable validity to assess the knowledge, attitudes, and prevention strategies regarding traffic injuries in older drivers by Spanish FPs.…”

“…The design (Supplementary File 1) and validation process of the questionnaire are also available elsewhere. 33 It included questions aimed at measuring three constructs: Attitudes about PCIOA, Knowledge about road traffic injuries in the elderly (ie, people over 65 years old), and Current Practices regarding PCIOA. For the present study, we used the following information:…”

“…Items adapted with permission from Jiménez-Mejías E, Rivera-Izquierdo M, Miguel Martín-delosReyes L, et al Development and validation of a questionnaire measuring knowledge, attitudes, and current practices of primary healthcare physicians regarding road injury prevention in older adults. Fam Pract.2022;39(3):537-546 by permission of Oxford UIniversity Press 33.…”