Developing a scale for measuring professional equity among Canadian physicians.
This paper reports on progress made in defining and measuring the concept of professional equity through the development of a summative measure of professional equity and three of its components: financial, intrinsic and recognition equity. The study sample consisted of a stratified sample of 8375 Canadian physicians with usable responses from 2749 (32.8%). Following preliminary components analysis, items were grouped into constructs. Reliability of the constructs was then determined using Cronbach's alpha and total inter-item correlations followed by confirmatory factor analysis. A summary scale using all 15 equity items yielded a reliability: Cronbach's alpha=0.86. The sub-scales reliabilities were: financial equity (Cronbach's alpha=0.91); intrinsic equity (Cronbach's alpha=0.86); and recognition equity (Cronbach's alpha=0.70). The professional equity measures reported are therefore capable of assessing different aspects of equity and represent an advance over more general effort-reward scales or those that only measure the range of rewards.
Dobson
Roy Thomas
RT
College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, 110 Science Place, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada S7N 5C9. roy.dobson@usask.ca
Lepnurm
Rein
R
Struening
Elmer
E
D002170:Canada; D017059:Models, Econometric; D010816:Physician Incentive Plans; D010820:Physicians / Q000191:economics*; D012456:Salaries and Fringe Benefits / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*