Development of A Scale to Measure the Attitudes of Medical and Allied Health Students towards Telepsychiatry in Saudi Arabia; in the Aftermath of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

A reliable and valid scale was developed to measure the attitude of clinical and medical students towards telepsychiatry and their stance towards telepsychiatry using the TPS scale. Feedback could be beneficial in predicting the success of its adoption in Saudi Arabia and improving the quality of training. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and the mandatory social distancing that has made telemedicine the safest interactive system among healthcare systems. However, as far as we know, no scale has been developed to explore the attitudes and perceptions of trainees towards adopting and using telepsychiatry in Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional study was devised and created involving 215 clinical and medical trainees from various universities and education programmes in Saudi Arabia. A 24-item scale was shared with Saudi trainees through an online portal to investigate the validity and reliability of that scale. To determine the construct reliability and validity of the scale, both Principal axis factoring (PAF) and Cronbach Alpha were used. Additionally, trainees’ perspectives were measured using the Welch T-test and one-way ANOVA. Concerning results, TPS scale’s content validity can be evidenced by the CVI (G-coefficient= 0.73). The PAF gave rise to a solution with 4 factors and 19 items, with roughly 57% of the total variance being explained. The Cronbach Alpha score for factor 1, factor 2, factor 3, and factor 4 were 0.90, 0.87, 0.81, and 0.73, respectively, while the value of Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient score for the entire TPS scale reached 0.76. The mean score of Saudi Arabian students’ attitudes towards telepsychiatry was 2.97±0.42. Male trainees have higher positive attitudes compared to female trainees (3.03±0.37 and 2.93±0.45 respectively); however, not statistically significant (p=0.107). No substantial difference was found in students’ attitudes in academic discipline (p=0.310) and training experience (p=0.186). The results support the hypothesis that there is “no difference in the total attitude of Saudi Arabian students’ according to (gender, academic discipline, training experience)” In conclusion, the TPS scale is a reliable and valid scale for measuring the attitudes of trainees towards telepsychiatry. The result of using the scale concluded that Saudi Arabian trainees have relatively positive attitudes towards telepsychiatry.