Validation of the Brazilian version of the professionalism mini-evaluation exercise (p-mex) to assess the professionalism of pediatricians

Purpose: Assessment allows students to identify their strengths and weaknesses and, when necessary, facilitates the intervention of the teacher. The Professionalism Mini-Evaluation Exercise (P-MEX) is an instrument with good psychometric properties used to assess the professionalism of students. Despite having good properties, there is no version validated for use in Brazil. Therefore, the aim of this study was to validate the cross-culturally adapted version of the P-MEX for Brazilian Portuguese and for the evaluation of pediatric residents. Methods: The adapted version of the P-MEX was applied by 17 preceptors to 30 pediatric medical residents. Validity was assessed by factor analysis with Varimax rotation. Cronbach's alpha coefficient and Kendall's tau-b correlation were calculated to verify the instrument's internal consistency and precision, respectively. Results: A total of 143 assessments were performed. Satisfactory internal consistency was observed (Cronbach's alpha 0.96). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated the permanence of the four original domains of the instrument, as well as the same number of items in each of these domains (factor extraction matrix > 0.3). A strong magnitude correlation (T=0.59, p=0.02) was observed between preceptors. Conclusions: The Brazilian version of the P-MEX is valid and reliable for assessing the professionalism of pediatric residents.