Abstract
Valid and reliable assessment of the clinical decision-making process is essential for the evaluation of decision aiding methods and effective quality assurance programs. The Provider Decision Process Assessment Instrument is a 12-item questionnaire that measures a health care provider's degree of comfort with a medical decision. Its mea surement properties were studied in two general internal medicine practices. Reliability, measured using Cronbach's alpha, was 0.90 (95% CI = 0.87 to 0.92). Construct validity was also high, with expected negative correlations ranging from -0.53 to -0.67. The instrument also satisfied standard criteria for item homogeneity and was readily com pleted by clinicians. These results suggest that the Provider Decision Process As sessment Instrument will prove to be a valuable tool for assessing medical decision making in busy clinical settings. Key words: decision making; decision support sys tems ; quality assessment.
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