Psychometric Properties of a Persian Version of the Specialty Indecision Scale: A Preliminary Study

Introduction: Diagnosis and management of specialty choice indecision is an important part of career guidance and support for medical students. Determining causes of indecision and resolving them helps students to make an optimum decision. The aim of this study was to determine the psychometric properties of a Persian version of the specialty indecision scale as an on-line questionnaire for medical student and graduates of Isfahan University of medical sciences, and also to determine the attitude of the participants towards this questionnaire. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, using Richard's specialty indecision questionnaire, the Iranian version of the questionnaire for clinical specialty indecision was developed. Face validity and cultural validity were confirmed by educational experts, and translation, back translation method, respectively. Then, the participants completed the online version of the questionnaire. Afterward, the questionnaire's items were factor analyzed. At the end, Subjects were asked about the questionnaire (clarity of the questionnaire, attractiveness of the website, user friendliness of the questionnaire, number of personal questions). Results: Fifty eight subjects participated in this study. The reliability of the questionnaire was acceptable (0.84). Two questions were omitted and five were revised. Items were grouped in 4 factors (general indecisiveness, postponing, barriers, and lack of determination) one of which (barriers) was similar to the American version. The subjects were also satisfied with online questionnaire and 100% of them thought completion of the tool was useful. Conclusion: This study showed that conducting a web based specialty indecision questionnaire is possible. It had differences with the American version both in number of factors and the items placement. These differences are justifiable in terms of the differences in cultural backgrounds and residency admission processes in the two countries. Also, lack of attention to translating the questions and inadequacy of sample size could be other reasons for these differences. With regard to the fact that there are no career counselors in Iranian universities, operating a web based career guidance system, along with introducing a counselor, may help medical students in specialty choice decision making.