Development of an instrument to assess cultural beliefs about physicians

Background: Beliefs about professionals' healthcare may influence healthcare behaviors. Such beliefs are in part the result of the interactions that professionals have with their patients. Recent studies highlight the importance of beliefs about physicians, their effect on health-care behaviors, and the requirement of culturally appropriate tools to measure such beliefs. Aim: To develop and validate a culturally appropriate instrument to measure beliefs about physicians. Material and Methods: Based on a "bottom-up" methodology, a culturally pertinent scale of beliefs about physicians was developed and then validated by expert judges. The resulting scale, with 26 items, was applied to 337 participants aged 31 +/- 7 years (85% women). Results: Two factors, grouping 24 items, emerged from the exploratory factor analysis. The first was called negative beliefs about doctors (Cronbach's alpha = 0.96) and the second was called positive beliefs about doctors (Cronbach's alpha = 0.95). Both factors explain 70 % of the scale variance. Conclusions: The devised instrument has adequate psychometric properties and is also culturally relevant. It allows the assessment of cultural beliefs about physicians.