Using Q methodology to assess the needs of emergency medicine support staff employees.
The support staff members of any Department of Emergency Medicine perform a plethora of tasks that are crucial to the productivity of both individual physicians and the department as a whole. It is important to ensure that the personal and professional needs of the support staff are being met. This report describes the use of a relatively new statistical technique, Q methodology, to elucidate the needs of the support staff. This method allowed the investigators to quantitatively reveal the presence of two distinct viewpoints on employee needs among the support staff. Additionally, opinions that were held by the employees concerning their needs were identified. These results allowed for strategies to be tailored to both the individual and the group. The results indicate that Q methodology can have widespread application in the relatively new area of health care quality research.
Chinnis
A S
AS
Department of Emergency Medicine, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506-9149, USA.
Paulson
D J
DJ
Davis
S M
SM
D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D020380:Needs Assessment; D010564:Personnel, Hospital / Q000523:psychology*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011779:Q-Sort; D014903:West Virginia; D000078329:Workforce