title: Development of an instrument to measure professionalism.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop and validate an instrument that measures professionalism among pharmacy students and recent graduates.
  
  
  METHODS
  A pharmacy professionalism survey instrument developed by a focus group was pretested and then administered to all first-year pharmacy students enrolled in the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy and to recent pharmacy graduates who were taking the preparation course for the Georgia Pharmacy Law Examination and North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination. Participants were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with each of 32 items using a 5-point Likert scale.
  
  
  RESULTS
  One hundred thirty first-year pharmacy students and 101 pharmacy graduates participated in the survey. Statistical analysis identified 6 factors (subscales), which were later named excellence, respect for others, altruism, duty, accountability, and honor/integrity, the 6 tenets of professionalism. Item to total correlations ranged from 0.25 to 0.57 on the 6 factors (subscales), and reliability estimates ranged from 0.72 to 0.85 for the 6 factors and total scale.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Pharmacy Professionalism Instrument measures the 6 tenets of professionalism and exhibits satisfactory reliability measures. Future studies using this scale in other pharmacy populations are needed.
authors.affiliation: University of Georgia College of Pharmacy, USA. mchishol@mail.mcg.edu
authors.forename: Marie A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Chisholm
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cobb
authors.forename: Lori
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Duke
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: McDuffie
authors.forename: William K
authors.initials: WK
authors.lastname: Kennedy
mesh_terms: D003625:Data Collection; D004512:Education, Pharmacy; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011361:Professional Competence; D012107:Research Design; D013339:Students, Pharmacy