Occupational Therapy Acute Care Self-Efficacy Scale (OTACSES): Development, Test-Retest Reliability, and Precision.
Corey McGee, Hannah Oldenburg
PMID 40688799WHAT IT FOUND
A new 10-item survey reliably measures OT students' confidence in acute care knowledge and skills.
Scores stay stable over time, allowing educators to track growth and identify specific gaps before students enter clinical rotations.
Key findings
01The scale consists of 10 items across two subscales (abilities and knowledge) that demonstrate very high internal consistency.
02Test-retest reliability was excellent for both subscales and the total score, with intraclass correlation coefficients ranging from 0.90 to 0.93.
03The minimal detectable change (MDC) for the total score is 6.63 points, meaning a change must exceed this amount to be considered real rather than measurement error.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTs
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What it does not show
The study only tested OT students, not practicing therapists, so it is unclear if the scale works equally well for experienced clinicians. The scale was developed based on US acute care practices and may not be relevant in other countries. The sample size was small (47 students) and mostly female, which may limit how widely the results apply. The threshold for meaningful change was calculated statistically rather than linked to real-world clinical performance or patient outcomes.
Declared interests
No specific conflicts of interest or funding sources are declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not use this scale to evaluate practicing occupational therapists or to predict patient outcomes. It was only validated with students who had minimal acute care experience, and it measures self-perceived confidence, not actual clinical competence.