Cross-cultural adaptation of the 4-Habits Coding Scheme into French to assess physician communication skills

Abstract

Background The Four Habits Coding Scheme (4-HCS) is a standardized instrument designed to assess physicians' communication skills from an external rater's perspective, based on videorecorded consultations. Objective To perform the cross-cultural adaptation of the 4-HCS into French and to assess its psychometric properties. Methods The 4-HCS was cross-culturally adapted by conducting forward and backward translations with independent translators, following international guidelines. Four raters rated 200 videorecorded medical student consultations with standardized patients, using the French version of the 4-HCS. We examined the internal consistency, factor structure, construct validity, and reliability of the 4-HCS. Results The mean overall 4-HCS score was 76.44 (standard deviation, 12.34), with no floor or ceiling effects across subscales. The median rating duration of rating was 8 min (range, 4-19). Cronbach's alpha was 0.94 for the overall 4-HCS, ranging from 0.72 to 0.88 across subscales. In confirmatory factor analysis, goodness-of-fit statistics did not corroborate the hypothesized 4-habit structure. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in two dimensions, with the merging of three conceptually related habits into a single dimension and substantial cross-loading for 15 out of 23 items. Median average absolute-agreement intra-class correlation coefficient estimates were 0.74 (range, 0.68-0.84) and 0.85 (range, 0.76-0.91) for inter- and intra-rater reliability of habit subscales, respectively.