Summary
Authors investigate the reliability and validity of data yielded by using the self-developed professionalism measurement tool for physicians and nurses, describe their levels of professionalism displayed, and quantify the extent to which professional attitudes would predict professional behaviors.
Authors designed and deployed survey instruments amongst 5920 physicians and nurses working in European hospitals. This was conducted under the cross-sectional multilevel study “Deepening Our Understanding of Quality Improvement in Europe” (DUQuE). We used psychometric and generalized linear mixed modeling techniques to address the aforementioned objectives. In all, 2067 physicians and 2805 nurses representing 74 hospitals in 7 European countries participated. The professionalism instrument revealed five subscales of professional attitude and one scale for professional behavior with moderate to high internal consistency and reliability. Physicians and nurses display equally high professional attitude sum scores but seem to have different perceptions towards separate professionalism aspects. Lastly, professionals displaying higher levels of professional attitudes were more involved in quality improvement actions and more inclined to report colleagues' underperformance. Involvement in QI actions was found to increase the odds of reporting incompetence or medical errors. A tool that reliably and validly measures European physicians' and nurses' commitment to professionalism is now available. Collectively leveraging professionalism as a quality improvement strategy may be beneficial to patient care quality.