title: Measuring wellness among resident physicians.
abstract: Requirements to include professionalism in residency curricula have generated a substantial body of literature concerning the environments that fail to nurture professionalism. Local and national surveys provide evidence that a high prevalence of depersonalization and emotional exhaustion exists among residents and that clinical practice is impaired as a result of these factors. A group of 34 residents from ten residency programmes participated in the psychometric testing of a resident wellness assessment instrument that can be rapidly administered, scored, and interpreted. The Brief Resident Wellness Profile is composed of a Mood faces graphical rating item and a six-question subscale. The six-item subscale had good reliability (alpha = 0.83; r = 0.84), convergent validity (r = 0.63), discriminant validity (r = -0.37), and concurrent validity ( p = 0.007). The Mood faces item had good convergent validity (r = 0.66), discriminant validity (r = -0.71), and concurrent validity ( p = 0.008). The Brief Resident Wellness Profile appears to be a reliable and valid instrument that measures residents' sense of professional accomplishment and mood and can be rapidly administered, scored, and interpreted.
authors.affiliation: University of Arizona Health Sciences Center, Tucson 85724-5057, USA. sam@aemrc.arizona.edu
authors.forename: Samuel M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Keim
authors.forename: Mary Z
authors.initials: MZ
authors.lastname: Mays
authors.forename: Jean M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Joyce
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Serido
authors.forename: Robin B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Harris
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000339:Affect; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards*; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires