Nivel de conocimientos sobre validez y seguridad de las pruebas diagnósticas más frecuentes aplicadas por médicos generales de Chiclayo 2011. Validación de instrumento.

Introduction: The level of knowledge of the validity and safety of diagnostic tests is important to correctly apply and find out whether this is to rule out or detect a disease. However, no studies have been found, nor instruments to measure this knowledge. Objective: to design and validate an instrument to measure the level of knowledge about the validity and safety of diagnostic tests which are frequently used by general physicians in Chiclayo 2011. Material and Methods: We designed a questionnaire of 29 questions, 20 of which correspond to the clinical dimension and 9 to the theoretical dimension. We analyzed the content validity through the assessment by experts. The pilot test was conducted, interviewing 34 general physicians using the questionnaire, of which reliability was evaluated by analyzing the internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha method and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), as well as Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of sphericity for factor analysis. Results: Cronbach's alpha of the questionnaire was 0.76, for the clinical dimension, 0.62 and the theoretical dimension, 0.65. The ICC had a value of 76%. The KMO value was 0.207, so the factor analysis should not be performed and result of Bartlett's test was 0.00, which is acceptable. Conclusion: The study provides a reliable instrument to measure knowledge about the most common diagnostic tests applied by general physicians.