Digital Commons Network^™

Who's Your Expert? Use Of An Expert Opinion Survey To Inform Development Of American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines., Joel Yager, Robert Kunkle, Laura J. Fochtmann, Sara M. Reid, Robert Plovnick, James E. Nininger, Joel J. Silverman, Michael J. Vergare

Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Faculty Papers

OBJECTIVE: For many clinical questions in psychiatry, high-quality evidence is lacking. Credible practice guidelines for such questions depend on transparent, reproducible, and valid methods for assessing expert opinion. The objective of this study was to develop and demonstrate the feasibility of a method for assessing expert opinion to aid in the development of practice guidelines by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

METHODS: A "snowball" process initially soliciting nominees from three sets of professional leaders was used to identify experts on a guideline topic (psychiatric evaluation). In a Web-based survey, the experts were asked to rate their level of agreement that …

Exploration And Confirmation Of The Latent Variable Structure Of The Jefferson Scale Of Empathy., Mohammadreza Hojat, Marianna Lanoue

Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Faculty Papers

OBJECTIVE: To reaffirm the underlying components of the JSE by using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and to confirm its latent variable structure by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

METHODS: Research participants included 2,612 medical students who entered Jefferson Medical College between 2002 and 2012. This sample was divided into two groups: Matriculants between 2002 and 2007 (n=1,380) and be-tween 2008 and 2012 (n=1,232). Data for 2002-2007 matriculants were subjected to EFA (principal component factor extraction), and data for matriculants of 2008-2012 were used for CFA (structural equation modeling, and root mean square error for approximation.

RESULTS: The EFA resulted in …

Empathy, Self-Reflection, And Curriculum Choice, Suely Grosseman, Mohammadreza Hojat, Pamela M. Duke, Stewart Mennin, Stephen Rosenzweig, Dennis Novack

Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Faculty Papers

We administered the Jefferson Scale of Empathy and the Groningen Reflection Ability Scale to 61 of 64 entering medical students who self-selected a problem-based learning curricular track and to 163 of 198 who self-selected a lecture-based track (response rates of 95.3% and 82.3%, respectively, with no statistically significant differences in mean age or sex). Mean empathy and self-reflection ability scores were significantly higher among students who chose problem-based learning. Women scored higher than men in empathy. Women choosing problem-based learning had the highest empathy scores. Studies comparing students’ performance and achievements in different curricular tracks should consider differences in personal …

Assessments Of Empathy In Medical School Admissions: What Additional Evidence Is Needed?, Mohammadreza Hojat

Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior Faculty Papers

The Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) sponsored a symposium on the theme of Examin-ing the Evidence with Regard to Character, Personality and Values in Medical School Selection which was held on October 14, 2013 at the University of Sheffield Medical School in the United Kingdom. I was invited to speak about credibility issues related to personality assessments in health profession educations. To my pleasant surprise, I found the European audience receptive (more than their counterparts in the United States) to the idea of using personality assess-ments in admission decisions. There seems to be a hesita-tion among leaders …