Validation of the Clinician Attitudes Toward Biostatistics Among Brazilian Dentistry Graduate Students

Abstract


 The aim of this study was to validity of the Portuguese version of the Clinician Attitudes Toward Biostatistics (CATB) among dentistry postgraduate students. The CATB is a psychometric instrument four-factor. We evaluated the validity (λ, X2/df, CFI, TLI e RMSEA) and reliability (Cronbach's alpha (α) and Composite Reliability (CR)) of the instrument to the sample. It took part of the study 115 postgraduate students (62 master’s students, 80 women, average age 26 ± 4 years). The four-factor model did not fit the sample (λ=0.00-0.85, X2/df=1.83, CFI=0.85 e TLI=0.82 e RMSEA=0.09). After the fit of the refined orthogonal two-factor model (“Perceptions of Knowledge/Training” and “Perceptions of Biostatistics in Research and Scientific Evidence”) was found to be adequate (λ>0.45, X2/df≤2.00; CFI e TLI>0.90, RMSEA≤0.10, α e CR>0.70). The “Perception of Knowledge/Training of Biostatistics” factor was not found to be correlated with the “Perception of Biostatistics in Research and Scientific Evidence”.

Attitudes toward statistics among dentistry postgraduates

“…The correlation between the CATB factors and the EAE factors suggests that the perceptions of possessing knowledge and training in biostatistics are not correlated with the perceptions of the importance of statistics in clinical/research activities, as advocated by Bonafé et al (2018). However, similarly to Wadhwa et al (2015), knowledge and training in statistics was positively correlated with positive attitudes toward statistics, and negatively correlated with negative attitudes toward statistics.…”

“…The CATB and EAE were used; the CATB was proposed by West and Ficalora (2007) and validated using postgraduate students from a school of dentistry by Bonafé et al (2018), and this study is the first to use the CATB on dentistry postgraduate students. It is the first presentation of the Portuguese version, and it is the first assessment the psychometric properties of the CATB using confirmatory factor analysis.…”

“…It is the first presentation of the Portuguese version, and it is the first assessment the psychometric properties of the CATB using confirmatory factor analysis. The CATB model consists of 12 items, with response options ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), distributed into two orthogonal factors (Perceptions of Knowledge and Training of Biostatistics and Perceptions of Biostatistics in Research and Scientific Evidence), as proposed by Bonafé et al (2018).…”

“…Literature suggests some instruments for the assessment of individual's attitudes and perceptions toward statistics and biostatistics, such as the Clinician Attitudes Toward Biostatistics survey (CATB; West & Ficalora, 2007) and the Attitudes Toward Statistics Scale (EAE; Cazorla et al, 1999). In a previous study, the CATB was validated for use with undergraduate students studying dentistry (Bonafé, Costa, & Campos, 2018). In what concerns to EAE, no studies were found in the literature that validated the instrument in samples of dentistry postgraduates students.…”