2018 Ottawa consensus statement: Selection and recruitment to the healthcare professions

Selection and recruitment into healthcare education and practice is a key area of interest for educators with significant developments in research, policy, and practice in recent years. This updated consensus statement, developed through a multi-stage process, examines future opportunities and challenges in selection and recruitment. There is both a gap in the literature around and a compelling case for further theoretical and empirical literature to underpin the development of overall selection philosophes and policies and their enactment. More consistent evidence has emerged regarding the quality of different selection methods. Approaches to selection are context-dependent, requiring the consideration of an institution's philosophy regarding what they are trying to achieve, the communities it purports to serve, along with the system within which they are used. Diversity and globalization issues continue to be critically important topics. Further research is required to explore differential attainment and explain why there are substantial differences in culturally acceptable ways of approaching diversity and widening access. More sophisticated evaluation approaches using multi-disciplinary theoretical frameworks are required to address the issues. Following a discussion of these areas, 10 recommendations are presented to guide future research and practice and to encourage debate between colleagues across the globe.

Development and validation of an instrument for measuring appointment-specific client satisfaction in companion-animal practice

Healthcare research recognizes that 'satisfaction' is an important health outcome of the medical encounter. As a result, many healthcare professions have pursued the development and validation of instruments for measuring patient satisfaction. However, veterinary medicine has developed and properly validated few instruments for measuring client satisfaction. This paper describes the development and psychometric assessment of an instrument for measuring appointment-specific client satisfaction in companion-animal practice. We developed the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) in four main phases. Phase I relied on a series of six pet-owner focus groups (n=32) to explore clients' expectations of veterinary care to provide a basis for constructing items for the CSQ. Phase II involved developing items for a first draft of the CSQ, using the content and themes taken from the pet-owner focus groups. In phase III we pre-tested the first draft with six veterinarians in companion-animal practice and a convenience sample of their clients (n=129). Data from the pre-test were used to test the initial psychometric characteristics of each item. Together with participant feedback, these findings were used to design the final, 15-item CSQ. Phase IV involved psychometrically testing the final, 15-item CSQ as part of a larger observational study involving 20 veterinarians and 344 of their clients. We used data from this sample to assess the reliability and validity of the CSQ in companion-animal practice. Assessment was based on descriptive statistics, principal-component analysis, generalizability theory and linear mixed modeling. Findings demonstrate excellent reliability (G-coefficient for internal consistency=0.96) and support the face, content and construct validity of the CSQ as a measure of appointment-specific client satisfaction in companion-animal practice.