Development and validation of scale for self evaluation of soft skills in postgraduate dental students

Objective: To develop and validate a soft skills questionnaire, and to use it for self-evaluation by postgraduate dentistry students. Method: The cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at University College of Dentistry,, University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan, from February 2020 to April 2020 and comprised of residents from first to final year of training for either Masters in Dental Surgery or Fellowship of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan programmes. A soft skills questionnaire was generated and was validated through exploratory factor analysis of the elements and items of the questionnaire using SPSS 23. Results: Of the 60 subjects, 37(61.7%) were MDS residents and 23(38.3%) were Fellowship residents. The mean age of the sample was 29.650 +/- 2.815 years, and 26(43.3%) subjects were males. The questionnaire was validated (p<0.001). Three domains measured the attitude of dentists, with 7 scenarios having 5 items per scenario. Both categories of trainees had high agreement in understanding and application of non-technical skills, with the exception of leadership skills. However, the difference between the groups was non-significant (p>0.05). Conclusion: A self-generated questionnaire was successfully validated.