Excellent scale assesses needs across four countries
What is the smartest scale for asking clinicians about their training needs?
In a new article published by the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, we report findings from a study that looked at a new scale, the training needs assessment. Read more or watch podcast below:
We wanted to find out whether a new tool – Training Need Assessment – does what it’s set to do, measure training needs.
| QUICK FACT: Addiction Medicine (AM) rarely uses Training Need Assessments (TNA). |
How we did the study?
We did a cross-sectional study in four countries (Indonesia, Ireland, Lithuania and the Netherlands). 483 health professionals working in addiction care completed AM-TNA. To assess the factor structure, we used explorative factor analysis. Reliability was tested using Cronbach’s Alpha, ANOVA determined the discriminative validity.
What has the scale found?
- Tailored training of health professionals is one of the elements to narrow the “scientific knowledge-addiction treatment” gap. Addiction Medicine (AM) rarely uses Training Need Assessments (TNA). The AM-TNA scale is a reliable, valid instrument to measure addiction medicine training needs. The AM-TNA helps to determine the profile of future addiction specialist.
The Training Need Assessment is a reliable, valid instrument to measure addiction medicine training needs.
Why is the scale important?
The AM-TNA proved reliable and valid. Additionally, the AM training needs in the non-clinical domain appeared positively related to the overall level of AM proficiency. Furthermore, researchers should study whether the AM-TNA can also measure changes in AM competencies over time and compare different health professionals. Finally, the AM-TNA assists tailoring training to national, individual and group addiction priorities.
| Reference: Pinxten, W.J.L. et al. (2019) Excellent reliability and validity of the Addiction Medicine Training Need Assessment Scale across four countries. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment , Volume 99 , 61 – 66 |
For more info read the full article in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 99 (2019) 61–66 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsat.2019.01.009
Read more about this topic in a post from 2017: What are the core skills of an addiction expert?
You can also read a related post from 2015: International Society of Addiction Medicine | Congress #isam2015
International Society of Addiction Medicine | Congress #isam2015