| Objective The purpose of this study is to construct a competency index system for Chinese medicine practitioners in the new era and to investigate the current situation of competency of Chinese medicine practitioners in order to provide a reference evaluation basis for the assessment,appointment and training of Chinese medicine practitioners.The study uses literature analysis to understand the competency-related research and build a theoretical framework at home and abroad,the behavioral event interview method to refine the quality characteristics of Chinese medicine physicians’job competency,the Delphi method to construct the Chinese medicine physicians’ job competency index system,the factor analysis method to test the reliability and validity,and the cross-sectional survey to verify the application value of the index system.Methods 1.Preliminary development of the indicator system of the job competency of Chinese medicine practitioners.Through the literature analysis method,we understood the related research and theoretical achievements of the Chinese medicine physicians’ job competency at home and abroad,grasped the research objects and research themes,and ensured the scientificity,accuracy and completeness of the data collection in the preliminary stage of the study.Using the behavioral event interview method,25 Chinese medicine practitioners were interviewed,and the interview data were analyzed using the thematic analysis method to refine the quality of Chinese medicine practitioners’ job competency and initially construct the index system.2.Constructing a competency index system for Chinese medicine physician positions.Based on the index system initially constructed by behavioral event interviews,it was prepared with reference to relevant competency literature to form an expert consultation questionnaire,and two rounds of consultation were conducted using the Delphi method for 30 experts,covering clinical,teaching,and management fields.3.Reliability and validity tests of the Chinese medicine physicians’ job competency index system.Convenience sampling method was used to select 316 TCM physicians from three tertiary class A Chinese medicine hospitals in Hangzhou,Zhejiang Province for questionnaire survey to test the reliability and validity.A total of 333 TCM physicians from three tertiary class A Chinese medicine hospitals in Hangzhou,Zhejiang Province were selected to conduct a questionnaire survey for Confirmatory factor analysis.A database was created using Excel 2019,and the results of the returned questionnaires were statistically analyzed using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 22.0.Reliability test:Cronbach’s a was used to screen the entries from the perspective of internal consistency,and the scale dimensions and the overall were tested for reliability by combining retest reliability and split-half reliability.Validity test:content validity test was conducted by using content validity index at the entry level and average content validity index of the scale,and structural validity test was conducted by using principal component analysis and Confirmatory factor analysis.Distinctness analysis:independent sample t-test was used to evaluate the quality of the questionnaire questions and to screen the valid questions of the questionnaire.4.To investigate the current situation of job competency of Chinese medicine practitioners.Through multi-stage random sampling method,974 TCM physicians from 11 tertiary TCM hospitals and 11 secondary TCM hospitals within Zhejiang Province were selected for questionnaire survey.The database was established using Excel 2019,and the results of the returned questionnaires were analyzed by singlefactor analysis and multiple linear regression using SPSS 26.0.Results 1.In this study,through literature analysis and behavioral event interviews,we initially constructed a Chinese medicine physician job competency index system,which included six primary entries(personal traits,professional knowledge,professional skills,communication skills,management skills,and research skills),a total of 22 secondary entries,and a total of 69 tertiary entries.2.The coefficient of variation of the second round of the index system was 0.07-0.18 for the primary index,0.07-0.16 for the secondary index and 0.07-0.18 for the tertiary index.6 primary indexes,19 secondary indexes and 57 tertiary indexes were finally formed for the primary index system of the competence of Chinese medicine practitioners.There are 57 indicators at three levels.The Kendall coefficients of indicators at all levels in the second round were significantly higher than those in the first round,and the coefficients of variation were less than 0.25,which indicated that the opinions of experts in the two rounds of consultation tended to be consistent.3.The TCM physician job competency scale includes 6 dimensions(professional knowledge,professional skills,communication skills,research skills,attitudes and values,and self-image)and 52 entries.The content validity index of the scale ranged from 0.81 to 1.00,and the content validity index of the scale level was 0.95.The Cronbach a of each dimension were 0.814 to 0.967,the retest reliability was 0.868 to 0.974,and the split-half reliability was 0.793 to 0.929;the results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that RSEMA<0.08,RMR<0.05,IFI,TLI,and CFI were all greater than 0.900.4.The overall mean score of the competency of Chinese medicine physicians in Zhejiang province was(4.03±0.46),with a score of 80.56%.The age,title,hospital level,years of work,and region of the Chinese medicine physicians were all factors influencing the competency of Chinese medicine physicians(p<0.05).Conclusion The competency index system of TCM physicians constructed in this study contains 6 primary indicators(professional knowledge,professional skills,communication ability,research ability,attitude and values,and self-image)and 52 secondary indicators.The construction process of the index system is scientific,with good reliability and validity,and can provide reference for the evaluation,appointment and training of Chinese medicine practitioners.The overall competency quality of TCM physicians in Zhejiang Province is good,but the research ability,professional skills and professional knowledge are relatively weak compared with others. |
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