Evaluating the reliability of the oBSTACLES Instrument

Abstract

Objectives: Each health profession has a responsibility to generate and implement evidence to support its practices; however, many obstacles continue to impede such progress. The 32-item BarrierS To the Application and Conduct of rEsearch (oBSTACLES) instrument was developed and subsequently validated to help identify these obstacles in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practice. The objective of this study was to assess the test–retest reliability of the oBSTACLES instrument. Design: Test–retest data were collected at baseline (round 1) and two-weeks later (round 2) from researchers and practitioners in CAM (n = 23). Intraclass correlation coefficients were used to measure test-retest reliability. Cronbach's alpha was used to assess internal consistency. Results: The majority (29/32, 91%) of oBSTACLES items achieved intraclass correlation coefficients ranging between 0.441 and 0.913 (“excellent”, “good” to “fair”). A high degree of internal consistency (α = 0.78) was demonstrated for the instrument overall, as well as for the conduct (α = 0.79) and application (α = 0.88) parts of the instrument. Conclusions: The results indicate the oBSTACLES instrument is a reliable measure of the barriers to the conduct and application of research evidence in complementary and alternative medicine. Access to such psychometrically sound tools can enable future surveys of CAM practitioners and researchers to identify the extent to which each of these barriers impacts the generation and application of evidence in CAM within the various complementary and alternative medicine disciplines.