--- title: "Measuring professionalism in medicine and nursing | Sutter Health" description: "We investigate professionalism as a factor influencing the uptake of quality improvement activities by physicians and nurses working in European hospitals." url: "https://www.sutterhealth.org/research/publications/measuring-professionalism-in-medicine-and-nursing-1055312797" --- 1. [Home](https://www.sutterhealth.org/) / 2. [Research](https://www.sutterhealth.org/research) / 3. [Research publications](https://www.sutterhealth.org/research/publications) / 4. Measuring professionalism in medicine and nursing # Measuring professionalism in medicine and nursing: results of a European survey. Lombarts KM, Plochg T, Thompson CA, & Arah OA; DUQuE Project Consortium. _PLoS One. 9(5):e97069. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097069. eCollection 2014._ 2014-05-21 ## Abstract BACKGROUND: Leveraging professionalism has been put forward as a strategy to drive improvement of patient care. We investigate professionalism as a factor influencing the uptake of quality improvement activities by physicians and nurses working in European hospitals. OBJECTIVE: To (i) investigate the reliability and validity of data yielded by using the self-developed professionalism measurement tool for physicians and nurses, (ii) describe their levels of professionalism displayed, and (iii) quantify the extent to which professional attitudes would predict professional behaviors. METHODS AND MATERIALS: We designed and deployed survey instruments amongst 5920 physicians and nurses working in European hospitals. This was conducted under the cross-sectional multilevel study "Deepening Our Understanding of Quality Improvement in Europe" (DUQuE). We used psychometric and generalized linear mixed modeling techniques to address the aforementioned objectives. RESULTS: In all, 2067 (response rate 69.8%) physicians and 2805 nurses (94.8%) representing 74 hospitals in 7 European countries participated. The professionalism instrument revealed five subscales of professional attitude and one scale for professional behavior with moderate to high internal consistency and reliability. Physicians and nurses display equally high professional attitude sum scores (11.8 and 11.9 respectively out of 16) but seem to have different perceptions towards separate professionalism aspects. Lastly, professionals displaying higher levels of professional attitudes were more involved in quality improvement actions (physicians: b?=?0.019, P<0.0001; nurses: b?=?0.016, P<0.0001) and more inclined to report colleagues' underperformance (physicians--odds ratio (OR) 1.12, 95% CI 1.01-1.24; nurses - OR 1.11, 95% CI 1.01-1.23) or medical errors (physicians--OR 1.14, 95% CI 1.01-1.23; nurses - OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.22-1.67). Involvement in QI actions was found to increase the odds of reporting incompetence or medical errors. CONCLUSION: A tool that reliably and validly measures European physicians' and nurses' commitment to professionalism is now available. Collectively leveraging professionalism as a quality improvement strategy may be beneficial to patient care quality. [PubMed abstract](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24849320) ## Research topics - [Health Services](https://www.sutterhealth.org/research-search-results?query=%22%5C%22Health+Services%5C%22%22) ## Related publications [View all publications](https://www.sutterhealth.org/research-search-results?verticalKey=research_publication) - Publication ### [Effect of Physician-specific Pay-for-Performance Incentives in a Large Group Practice](https://www.sutterhealth.org/research/publications/physician-specific-pay-for-performance-incentives-1055312564) Chung S, Palaniappan LP, Trujillo LM, Rubin HR, Luft HS Am J Manag Care. 16(2):e35-42 2010 Feb 01 - Publication ### [Five decades of HSR-by words and figures.](https://www.sutterhealth.org/research/publications/five-decades-hsr-words-figures-1055312369) Luft HS. 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J Patient Cent Res Rev. 2017;4:237-46. 2017 Nov 06 [View all publications](https://www.sutterhealth.org/research-search-results?verticalKey=research_publication) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"MedicalOrganization","name":"Sutter Health","@id":"https://www.sutterhealth.org/#medicalorganization","url":"https://www.sutterhealth.org","logo":"https://www.sutterhealth.org/static/images/sutter-health-logo.svg","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"2200 River Plaza Drive","addressLocality":"Sacramento","addressRegion":"CA","postalCode":"95833","addressCountry":"US"},"areaServed":{"@type":"AdministrativeArea","name":"California"},"sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/SutterHealth","https://www.instagram.com/sutterhealth/","https://x.com/SutterHealth","https://www.youtube.com/sutterhealth","https://www.linkedin.com/company/sutter-health","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutter_Health"]} ``` ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https://www.sutterhealth.org/research/publications/measuring-professionalism-in-medicine-and-nursing-1055312797#breadcrumblist","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://www.sutterhealth.org/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Research","item":"https://www.sutterhealth.org/research"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Research publications","item":"https://www.sutterhealth.org/research/publications"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Measuring professionalism in medicine and nursing"}]} ``` ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"MedicalScholarlyArticle","@id":"https://www.sutterhealth.org/research/publications/measuring-professionalism-in-medicine-and-nursing-1055312797#medicalscholarlyarticle","name":"Measuring professionalism in medicine and nursing: results of a European survey.","headline":"Measuring professionalism in medicine and nursing","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Leveraging professionalism has been put forward as a strategy to drive improvement of patient care. We investigate professionalism as a factor influencing the uptake of quality improvement activities by physicians and nurses working in European hospitals. OBJECTIVE: To (i) investigate the reliability and validity of data yielded by using the self-developed professionalism measurement tool for physicians and nurses, (ii) describe their levels of professionalism displayed, and (iii) quantify the extent to which professional attitudes would predict professional behaviors. METHODS AND MATERIALS: We designed and deployed survey instruments amongst 5920 physicians and nurses working in European hospitals. This was conducted under the cross-sectional multilevel study \"Deepening Our Understanding of Quality Improvement in Europe\" (DUQuE). We used psychometric and generalized linear mixed modeling techniques to address the aforementioned objectives. RESULTS: In all, 2067 (response rate 69.8%) physicians and 2805 nurses (94.8%) representing 74 hospitals in 7 European countries participated. The professionalism instrument revealed five subscales of professional attitude and one scale for professional behavior with moderate to high internal consistency and reliability. Physicians and nurses display equally high professional attitude sum scores (11.8 and 11.9 respectively out of 16) but seem to have different perceptions towards separate professionalism aspects. Lastly, professionals displaying higher levels of professional attitudes were more involved in quality improvement actions (physicians: b?=?0.019, P\u003c0.0001; nurses: b?=?0.016, P\u003c0.0001) and more inclined to report colleagues' underperformance (physicians--odds ratio (OR) 1.12, 95% CI 1.01-1.24; nurses - OR 1.11, 95% CI 1.01-1.23) or medical errors (physicians--OR 1.14, 95% CI 1.01-1.23; nurses - OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.22-1.67). Involvement in QI actions was found to increase the odds of reporting incompetence or medical errors. CONCLUSION: A tool that reliably and validly measures European physicians' and nurses' commitment to professionalism is now available. 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