Development and evaluation of a measure of treatment knowledge in guided self-help for eating disorders in a sample of healthcare students and professionals

摘要

Purpose The current study describes the development of a measure designed to assess treatment-specific competence in guided self-help (GSH) for eating disorders. The aim is to assess healthcare professionals' understanding of a popular treatment manual and associated material. Methods After initial item development from a review of relevant literature, a range of healthcare staff and students (N= 127) completed a knowledge questionnaire. From these data, estimates of psychometric properties were made and a subset of the original sample completed the measure again after 6 weeks. Results The final questionnaire consists of 40 items, demonstrating acceptable content validity, internal consistency, and reliability. Significant differences in the number of questions answered correctly were observed between experts in GSH and those with less experience. Conclusions This questionnaire offers a means of assessing therapist knowledge of GSH which demonstrates good psychometric properties. Further testing of this instrument is required to establish its full applicability.