Development and testing of a scale to assess physician attitudes about handheld computers with decision support.
OBJECTIVE
The authors developed and evaluated a rating scale, the Attitudes toward Handheld Decision Support Software Scale (H-DSS), to assess physician attitudes about handheld decision support systems.


METHODS
The authors conducted a prospective assessment of psychometric characteristics of the H-DSS including reliability, validity, and responsiveness. Participants were 82 Internal Medicine residents. A higher score on each of the 14 five-point Likert scale items reflected a more positive attitude about handheld DSS. The H-DSS score is the mean across the fourteen items. Attitudes toward the use of the handheld DSS were assessed prior to and six months after receiving the handheld device.


METHODS
Cronbach's Alpha was used to assess internal consistency reliability. Pearson correlations were used to estimate and detect significant associations between scale scores and other measures (validity). Paired sample t-tests were used to test for changes in the mean attitude scale score (responsiveness) and for differences between groups.


RESULTS
Internal consistency reliability for the scale was alpha = 0.73. In testing validity, moderate correlations were noted between the attitude scale scores and self-reported Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) usage in the hospital (correlation coefficient = 0.55) and clinic (0.48), p < 0.05 for both. The scale was responsive, in that it detected the expected increase in scores between the two administrations (3.99 (s.d. = 0.35) vs. 4.08, (s.d. = 0.34), p < 0.005).


CONCLUSIONS
The authors' evaluation showed that the H-DSS scale was reliable, valid, and responsive. The scale can be used to guide future handheld DSS development and implementation.
Ray
Midge N
MN
Department of Health Services Administration, School of Health Professions, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-3361, USA. midgeray@uab.edu
Houston
Thomas K
TK
Yu
Feliciano B
FB
Menachemi
Nir
N
Maisiak
Richard S
RS
Allison
Jeroan J
JJ
Berner
Eta S
ES
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D034201:Computers, Handheld; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D010820:Physicians; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results