How Does Medical School Graduates in the Middle East Assess Themselves in Professionalism, Communication, and Collaboration?

Purpose: Self-assessment is widely used in the healthcare system. It allows individuals to be included in the evaluation process, and it facilitates obtaining integral information. Self-assessment among medical graduates allows faculties to tackle any areas of ineptitude to improve the school performance as a whole. The main purpose of this study is to (i) investigate how medical graduates of medical schools in the Middle East assess themselves on the following competencies: professionalism, communication, and collaboration; (ii) investigate the effect of gender and type of hospitals on self-assessment; and (iii) provide some evidence to support the construct validity of the Bahrain Defense Force Instrument in assessing professionalism, communication, and collaboration (BDF/PCC). Method: A questionnaire-based survey was used to self-assess 202 students who graduated from six medical schools across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The BDF/PCC was used in this study. Descriptive statistics were generated for the demographic data. For each survey question, the percentage, mean, and standard deviation were calculated. The Mann-Whitney U test was performed for the comparison of mean scores of professionalism, communication, and collaboration on different demographic and educational groups. Instrument reliability (stability) was assessed by computing Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for both the total scales and the subscale (factor). To provide evidence for the construct validity, exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify which items on the survey were grouped together (becoming a factor). Results: From 202 medical graduates, 77.2% (n = 156) were males and 22.8% (n = 46) were females. 77.2% (n = 156) of the medical graduates attended a medical school affiliated with a teaching hospital, and 22.8% (n = 46) of the medical graduates attended medical schools affiliated with non-teaching hospitals. From the 156 medical graduates who attended a medical school affiliated with the teaching hospital, 70.5% of them were male medical graduates and 29.5% were females. Medical graduates coming from medical schools with no affiliation with teaching hospitals had higher self-evaluation scores in professionalism (P < 0.001), communication skills (P < 0.001), and collaboration skills (P < 0.001). In regard to gender differences, collaboration scores were significantly different among male and female medical graduates (P = 0.040), and female medical graduates viewed themselves as having stronger collaboration skills than males. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated for the instrument, and it showed a high reliability score of 0.951. Three domains were identified based on the factor loading from exploratory factor analysis. The factor analysis showed that the data on the questionnaire decomposed into three factors (professionalism, communication, and collaboration) that represented 66.7% of the total variance. Conclusion: Medical graduates attending universities not affiliated with teaching hospitals had rated themselves higher in professionalism, communication, and collaboration than medical graduates who attended universities affiliated with teaching hospitals. We noted female medical graduates scored themselves more in collaboration skills than male medical graduates. The BDF/PCC was found to be both reliable and valid in our context.