Validation of a questionnaire to evaluate the sense of belonging in medical residents

Abstract

Introduction: A sense of belonging is the representation of ourselves, a feeling of identification and bonding due to being included with a group and the environment where it develops, with the construction of our meanings.

Objective: To identify whether the proposed instrument is valid to determine the sense of belonging in residents.

Method: In this analytical cross-sectional study for the adaptation of the questionnaire on the sense of belonging to the medical area, five experts collaborated for content validity using the Delphi method; 101 residents in the pilot test for construct validity through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and reliability with Cronbach’s alfa coefficient. The research was registered with the Research Ethics Committee No. 10088 and the Local Health Research Committee No. 1008 of the IMSS. All participants signed the informed consent.

Results: Two rounds of the expert review were conducted to consider the questionnaire valid; the overall Cronbach’s alfa coefficient was 0.97 and >0.90 for each of its sections. Employing the AFE, a four-factor structure was identified, with a KMO adequacy measure of 0.885, Bartlett’s test of sphericity <0.05, and a correlation between variables >0.6. The questionnaire consisted of nineteen items, grouped into four factors: affective, psychological-social, academic, and physical. The total variance explained manifests with the first four factors with 65.31%.

Conclusions: The adaptation of the PUCMM-CSTA sense of belonging questionnaire to the medical area shows good psychometrics, so it is valid and dependable to evaluate the sense of belonging in students of medical specialization courses.