Design and Development of a Self-Report Competence Scale for The Assessment of Prehospital Health Professionals’ Competence in Response to Radiological Events

The objective of this study was to develop a self-report scale for the assessment of the competence of pre-hospital health professionals in responding to radiological incidents. Based on the findings of a systematic review analyzing the literature, the instrument followed the processes of item generation, expert opinion, language control, pilot study, and field testing. In the exploratory factor analysis, 48 items were excluded on the grounds of insufficient common variance (>0.40) and factor loading relationship (>0.50). The remaining 18 items (11 negative and 7 positive items) exhibited a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.913 and a range of 0.740 to 0.887 in the sub-factors. As the scores on the developed scale increased, there was a corresponding increase in the perceived adequacy of the interventions. The objective, scope, constraints and stages of the scale's design and development were elucidated in comprehensive detail, and its intelligibility to other societies was ensured. The scale was developed as a self-report scale that can evaluate the competence of prehospital health professionals in radiological incidents.