Validation of the Palliative Competency Tool: An Instrument To Qualify Medical Education (Validation of Palliative Competency Tool)

Abstract

Introduction: It is necessary to determine which competencies in Palliative Care (PC) have been acquired and which ones need to be improved. The aim was to develop and validate an instrument to assess the acquisition of competencies in PC care among medical students denominated Palliative Competency Tool (Pallicomp).Materials and methods: It were consisted of developing statements based on the competencies as described by the European Association for Palliative Care. The content was validated by experts, respecting the Delphi methodology. The instrument was applied to a group of medical students (n=71) enrolled at the final of 8th semester and statically validated.Results: Of the 30 questions developed, 24 were refined and approved by experts. The tool was applied to 71 medical students, only 12.7% had excellent performance and four out of ten competencies were underperformed. The statistical validation consisted of Bartlett's sphericity test, which showed adequate correlation for factor analysis (p <0.001); the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test for sample adequacy (0.7), and Conbach's alpha coefficient for the internal consistency (α = 0.7).Conclusions: Can be concluded that it was possible to construct and validate Palliative Competency Tool (PalliComp), an instrument of qualification of competencies acquisition of PC.