Development and validation of an inventory (Dundee Barometer of Institutional Professionalism) to measure the professionalism culture of medical schools in the UK

Background: Professionalism, in today’s context, is a determinant of fitness‐to‐practise of doctors. Many professional and governing bodies around the world have emphasised the need for educating medical students explicitly about professionalism. In fostering professionalism, the institutional culture plays a concealed but vital role. Although the institutional professionalism culture should be explored and understood there was no suitable measure for use in the context of UK undergraduate medical education. The aim of this project was to develop a valid, reliable and practical measure of institutional professionalism culture. Methods and results: The project was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, forty six attributes of professionalism were identified in a literature review. These attributes were surveyed among a nationally representative quota sample of 954 members of the UK general public. They identified 44 attributes as important. With a principal component analysis, three facets to professionalism were identified: the relationship of doctors with patients (clinicianship) and co‐workers (workmanship), and the behaviour of doctors in society (citizenship). By analysing the survey responses of 368 UK medical professionals using the Content Validity Index, 28 attributes were identified to represent each facet (clinicianship 10, workmanship 11, and citizenship 7). In the second phase, the 28 attributes were included in an online measure (Dundee Barometer of Institutional Professionalism) with a rating scale based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), and field‐tested among the faculty and students of the Dundee