Background Self-management support to patients is considered increasingly important in healthcare, also for physiotherapists. However, the competencies that physiotherapists need to deliver self-management support have yet to be described.
Objective To develop and psychometrically test the Self-Efficacy and Performance in Self-Management Support instrument for physiotherapists (SEPSS-PT), on the bases of the SEPSS-36, the corresponding instrument for nurses. Methods A literature review (n=42 reviews) and consultations with physiotherapists and patients identified the specific content for physiotherapy. The Five-A’s model and an overarching category of ‘overall’ competencies was used to structure the items. Psychometric evaluation of the draft questionnaire (40 items) was tested in a sample of 334 physiotherapists and physiotherapy students from the Netherlands, of whom 33 filled out the questionnaire twice to establish the test–retest reliability.
Results Confirmatory factor analyses revealed satisfactory fit indices for both the six-factor model and the hierarchical model, with best fit for the six-factor model. The questionnaire discriminated between physiotherapists and physiotherapy students, and between physiotherapists who did or did not consider self-management support important. The overall internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) was high, both for the self-efficacy and the performance items. In the majority of the subscales, test-retest intra-class correlation coefficients for both overall self-efficacy and performance were good, but in three subscales insufficient for performance. Conclusions The SEPSS-PT questionnaire is a 40-item, Likert-scaled instrument with good content and construct validity, good internal consistency and reliability, and sufficient test-retest reliability. Future research in a larger and more diverse sample could confirm stability and discriminating power.