The “Allgemeinarztbarometer A” – an instrument to assess primary care competencies during medical education and training

Abstract

Introduction: The primary goal of medical education and training is to develop clinical competencies. Competency-based curricula exist for both medical education which – once the current reform is implemented – will be geared more towards primary care, and specialty training for General Practice. The “Allgemeinarztbarometer” is a German-language instrument to assess primary care competencies during specialty training and has so far been mainly used as a self-assessment tool. The aim of this study was (i) to test the application of the “Allgemeinarztbarometer” in the context of medical education as an external assessment tool (in its “Allgemeinarztbarometer A [ABA]” version) and (ii) to evaluate its basic psychometric properties. Methods: Physicians involved in teaching were asked to assess medical students after a two-week internship in General Practice during their fifth year of study using the ABA (9-item external assessment version). After data processing and displaying basic distributions, we conducted exploratory factor analysis, followed by confirmatory factor analysis. The detected factor structure was then tested for internal consistency. Results: A total of 150 completed questionnaires were included in the analysis. One item showed a high number of missing values (response option “Not assessable”). Exploratory factor analysis indicated a two-factor structure (“Patient-oriented skills” and “General Practice decision-making”). Three items were not unambiguously assignable and hence erased. Confirmatory factor analysis validated the identified factor structure. The two factors showed a Cronbach's α of 0.73 and 0.84 (moderate to very good internal consistency). Discussion: Our study provides a first analysis of the ABA in the context of medical education. The detected two-dimensional structure shows a high goodness-of-fit when giving up three items still used in this survey. The analysis of missing data showed a high number of “I can't say” answers when assessing the development of strategies against burnout. Conclusions: The ABA (6-item version) seems to be a suitable tool for the external assessment of General Practice competencies in the context of medical education. Further studies are needed to evaluate both the completeness of the assessment and the external assessability of certain items in the context of medical education.