Development and psychometric properties of the Washington Primary Care Interest Inventory.
OBJECTIVE
To describe the development of the Washington Primary Care Interest Inventory (WPCII), which was designed to assess attitudes toward what constitutes appropriate psychosocial concerns for visiting a family physician, and to demonstrate the relationship between these attitudes and specialty selection in matriculating medical students.


METHODS
Five entering classes of medical students (1990 to 1995, without 1992) at the University of Washington were administered the WPCII during orientation. Reliability, factor, and predictive validity analyses were performed to measure the utility of the WPCII.


RESULTS
Factor analysis revealed three interpretable factors to underlie the WPCII: stressors, physical complaints, and familial complaints. Scales developed from these factors correlated with students' early career preferences and showed significant differences across students who were selected under different interviewing formats. Differences between the sexes were found for both specific items and scales.


CONCLUSIONS
The WPCII is a reliable and valid measure of attitudes toward the appropriateness of family physicians' treating psychosocial complaints. These attitudes have implications for the selection of medical students, curriculum development, assessment, and health education research.
Brock
D M
DM
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA.
Schaad
D C
DC
Guo
J
J
Hunt
D D
DD
Samson
W
W
Irby
D M
DM
D002321:Career Choice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008511:Medicine; D010555:Personality Inventory; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013038:Specialization; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014861:Washington