Validation of the Physician-Pharmacist collaborative index for physicians in Malaysia
Pauline Siew Mei Lai
University of Malaya, Malaysia
: J Pharm Drug Deliv Res
Abstract
The Physician–Pharmacist Collaborative Index (PPCI) for physicians was developed to assess the professional exchanges between doctors and pharmacists. However, it has not been validated in Malaysia. Therefore, the objective of our study was to determine the validity and reliability of the PPCI for physicians in Malaysia. This validation study was conducted from June-August 2014, at a tertiary hospital in Kuala Lumpur. Doctors were grouped as either a ‘‘collaborator’’ or a ‘‘non-collaborator’’. Collaborators were doctors who regularly worked with one particular clinical pharmacist in their ward, while non-collaborators were doctors who interacted with any random pharmacist who answered the general pharmacy telephone line whenever they required assistance on medicationrelated enquiries, as they did not have a clinical pharmacist in their ward. The PPCI for physicians was administered at baseline and 2 weeks later. A total of 116 doctors (18 collaborators and 98 noncollaborators) were recruited. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the PPCI for physicians was a 3-factor model. The correlation of the mean domain scores ranged from 0.711-0.787. ‘‘Collaborators’’ had significantly higher scores compared to ‘‘non-collaborators’’ (81.4±10.1 vs. 69.3±12.1, p<0.001). The Cronbach alpha for the overall PPCI for physicians was 0.949, while the Cronbach alpha values for the individual domains ranged from 0.877- 0.926. Kappa values at test–retest ranged from 0.553-0.752. The PPCI for physicians was a valid and reliable measure in determining doctors’ views about collaborative working relationship with pharmacists in Malaysia.
Biography
Email: plai@ummc.edu.my
