A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF AN INTERPROFESSIONALISM ASSESSMENT SCALE APPLIED TO HEALTH SCIENCES UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Resumo

Introduction: The search for initiatives that stimulate interprofessionalism should incorporate activities developed by educational institutions. The Bahia School of Medicine and Public Health (EBMSP) runs a project, approved by the Government Program of Education for Work in Health - PET-Saúde, which promotes interprofessional practice. Objective: Evaluate the psychometric properties of the IEPS when applied to Brazilian students. Method: We conducted Exploratory Factorial Analyses and took into account the eigenvalues and the theoretical model in order to estimate the number of factors.  The Cronbach alpha coefficient was also calculated. Results: A three-dimensional factorial solution was tested. These three factors jointly explain 66.5% of variance in interprofessionalism. Three items were excluded, due to empirical weaknesses. The Cronbach alphas obtained for each dimension were 0.84, 0.70 and 0.16. Conclusion: The study attained its objective, gathering initial evidence regarding the validity of this measure in a Brazilian context.