1.Evaluating the Occupational Health and safety Engineering Internship Course from the Perspective of Trainees: At Developing and Validating A New Tool
Hamidreza Mokarami ; Abdullah Barkhordari ; Mehdi Jahangiri ; Behrad Pourmohammadi ; Mostafa Mohammadian ; Vahid Gharibi
Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences 2021;17(No.3):126-132
Introduction: The internship course is a very important part of each university course. The present study aimed at designing and validating a standard instrument for evaluating the internship course in the field of Occupational Health
and Safety Engineering (OHSE) from the perspective of trainees. Methods: The dimensions and items of the tool were
developed using the panel of experts, syllabus provided by the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education,
and literature reviews. Validity of the tool was assessed using face validity, Content Validity Ratio (CVR), Content
Validity Index (CVI), and Impact Score (IS). Reliability was evaluated by test–retest reliability analyses and internal
consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient). Finally, the internship courses were evaluated during three subsequent
years (2016-2018) among 45 students of Shahroud University of Medical Sciences (SHMU) in Iran. Results: The final
version of the tool contained five dimensions and 20 items. The CVI and CVR were 0.81 and 0.74, respectively. The
ISs of all 20 items were above the minimum acceptable value (1.5). The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.79 and
test-retest Pearson’s correlation coefficient was significant at 0.891 (p<0.001). The overall mean score of evaluation
was estimated to be 3.81, which was acceptable. However, poor mean scores were obtained in “access to equipment and laboratory instruments” and “familiarity with job opportunities and internship” dimensions. Conclusions:
The results of this study led to a valid tool for evaluating the OHSE internship course. This standard tool can be used
to evaluate the perspective of OHSE trainees about the training period and use the results to correct the weaknesses
and reinforce the strengths of the training programs.