Assessing patient-centeredness among medical students: The italian translation and validation of the patient-practitioner orientation scale

This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric proprieties of the Italian version of the Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale (PPOS) in a large sample (N = 854) of Italian second-year medical students from six consecutive academic years. The 18 items of the PPOS were translated into Italian using a standard translation/back-translation process. The construct validity of the PPOS was established with Confirmatory Factor Analyses. Multi-group measurement invariance between males and females was also performed. Finally, convergent validity and Raykov’s composite reliability were used as indicators of PPOS internal consistency. Results supported the two original factors labeled Caring and Sharing, but the validated Italian version of the PPOS includes 8 items out of the 18 of the original questionnaire. The PPOS-8-IT resulted in a reliable and valid self-report measure of patient-centeredness among Italian undergraduate medical students. The PPOS-8-IT might be used for assessing and monitoring the attitudes of Italian medical students towards the doctor-patient relationship for educational, evaluative, and research purposes.