TY - JOUR
T1 - Measuring teamwork and conflict among emergency medical technician personnel
AU - Patterson, P. Daniel
AU - Weaver, Matthew D.
AU - Weaver, Sallie J.
AU - Rosen, Michael A.
AU - Todorova, Gergana
AU - Weingart, Laurie R.
AU - Krackhardt, David
AU - Lave, Judith R.
AU - Arnold, Robert M.
AU - Yealy, Donald M.
AU - Salas, Eduardo
N1 - Funding Information:
Supported by Award Number KL2 RR024154 from the National Center for Research Resources. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Center for Research Resources or the National Institutes of Health. Additional grant support was provided by the North Central EMS Institute (NCEMSI) and Pittsburgh Emergency Medicine Foundation (PEMF).
PY - 2012/1
Y1 - 2012/1
N2 - Objective. We sought to develop a reliable and valid tool for measuring teamwork among emergency medical technician (EMT) partnerships. Methods. We adapted existing scales and developed new items to measure components of teamwork. After recruiting a convenience sample of 39 agencies, we tested a 122-item draft survey tool (EMT-TEAMWORK). We performed a series of exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test reliability and construct validity, describing variation in domain and global scores using descriptive statistics. Results. We received 687 completed surveys. The EFAs identified a nine-factor solution. We labeled these factors 1) Team Orientation, 2) Team Structure & Leadership, 3) Partner Communication, Team Support, & Monitoring, 4) Partner Trust and Shared Mental Models, 5) Partner Adaptability & Back-Up Behavior, 6) Process Conflict, 7) Strong Task Conflict, 8) Mild Task Conflict, and 9) Interpersonal Conflict. We tested a short-form (30-item SF) and long-form (45-item LF) version. The CFAs determined that both the SF and the LF possess positive psychometric properties of reliability and construct validity. The EMT-TEAMWORK-SF has positive internal consistency properties, with a mean Cronbach's alpha coefficient ≥0.70 across all nine factors (mean = 0.84; minimum = 0.78, maximum = 0.94). The mean Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the EMT-TEAMWORK-LF was 0.87 (minimum = 0.79, maximum = 0.94). There was wide variation in weighted scores across all nine factors and the global score for the SF and LF. Mean scores were lowest for the Team Orientation factor (48.1, standard deviation [[SD]] 21.5, SF; 49.3, SD 19.8, LF) and highest (more positive) for the Interpersonal Conflict factor (87.7, SD 18.1, for both SF and LF). Conclusions: We developed a reliable and valid survey to evaluate teamwork between EMT partners.
AB - Objective. We sought to develop a reliable and valid tool for measuring teamwork among emergency medical technician (EMT) partnerships. Methods. We adapted existing scales and developed new items to measure components of teamwork. After recruiting a convenience sample of 39 agencies, we tested a 122-item draft survey tool (EMT-TEAMWORK). We performed a series of exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test reliability and construct validity, describing variation in domain and global scores using descriptive statistics. Results. We received 687 completed surveys. The EFAs identified a nine-factor solution. We labeled these factors 1) Team Orientation, 2) Team Structure & Leadership, 3) Partner Communication, Team Support, & Monitoring, 4) Partner Trust and Shared Mental Models, 5) Partner Adaptability & Back-Up Behavior, 6) Process Conflict, 7) Strong Task Conflict, 8) Mild Task Conflict, and 9) Interpersonal Conflict. We tested a short-form (30-item SF) and long-form (45-item LF) version. The CFAs determined that both the SF and the LF possess positive psychometric properties of reliability and construct validity. The EMT-TEAMWORK-SF has positive internal consistency properties, with a mean Cronbach's alpha coefficient ≥0.70 across all nine factors (mean = 0.84; minimum = 0.78, maximum = 0.94). The mean Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the EMT-TEAMWORK-LF was 0.87 (minimum = 0.79, maximum = 0.94). There was wide variation in weighted scores across all nine factors and the global score for the SF and LF. Mean scores were lowest for the Team Orientation factor (48.1, standard deviation [[SD]] 21.5, SF; 49.3, SD 19.8, LF) and highest (more positive) for the Interpersonal Conflict factor (87.7, SD 18.1, for both SF and LF). Conclusions: We developed a reliable and valid survey to evaluate teamwork between EMT partners.
KW - conflict
KW - emergency medical technicians
KW - safety
KW - survey
KW - teamwork
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U2 - 10.3109/10903127.2011.616260
DO - 10.3109/10903127.2011.616260
M3 - Article
C2 - 22128909
AN - SCOPUS:82555172986
SN - 1090-3127
VL - 16
SP - 98
EP - 108
JO - Prehospital Emergency Care
JF - Prehospital Emergency Care
IS - 1
ER -