A reliability and validity study of Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire

Objective: It is imperative for health professionals to have teamwork skills, which primarily necessitate developing skills of inter work, cooperation and teamwork. This study aims to conduct a reliability and validity study of the Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire in order to investigate the attitudes of nurses and doctors towards teamwork. Methods: The study sample consisted of 150 health professionals including nurses and doctors serving in a hospital. The study data were collected with a Personal Information Form and Teamwork Attitudes Questionnaire. The questionnaire included five subdimensions and 30 items and its Turkish adaptation was made with back translation under the supervision of 8 experts who analyzed the language and content validity and consequently omitted 2 items. The data analysis was carried out with confirmatory factor analysis; validity was tested with item analysis and reliability was measured with Cronbach's alpha and split half tests. Findings: Confirmatory Factor Analysis affirmed that items were represented by five main factors as presumed in the original questionnaire. Model fit indices were found to be X-2=690.62, RMSEA=0.084, GFI=0.94, CFI=1.00. Cronbach's alpha interval was between 0.70 and 0.89 for internal consistency. The correlation coefficients of the questionnaire were reported between 0.43 and 0.81. The correlation between the items and the scores was noted to be statistically meaningful. Results: Turkish version of TAQ was approved to be a valid and reliable measurement tool for determining the attitudes of individuals towards certain components fundamentally inquired by the questionnaire such as team structure, leadership, supervision, mutual help and communication. It has been concluded that this study would certainly contribute to further studies on programs focusing on developing teamwork. (Anatolian Journal of Psychiatry 2012; 13:131-137)