Validity and Reliability of an Objective Structured Clinical Examination in Psychiatry: A Guided Survey

Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is used for comprehensive exams for the residents and board of specialists in psychiatry. In a guided survey performed by Iran, Tehran, and Isfahan�Universities of Medical Sciences in the Behavioral Sciences Research Center (BSRC) in Isfahan, validity and reliability of OSCE in psychiatry were evaluated as well as familiarizing psy-chiatry residents and consultants with it. The study was conducted to measure the validity and reliability of OSCE in psychiatry autumn, 2005 in BSRC in Isfahan. A 3-day workshop was therefore held, in which 22 consultant psychiatrist and 22 psychiatry residents participated and 6 10-minute stations were also designed. To assess validity, face validity method and to assess reliability, inter-station reliability and internal con-sistency, contingency coefficient and parallel reliability were used. The mean of checklist total scores for the residents was 84.28 (standard deviation=11.91). Agreement coefficient between the raters’ scores (in all 6 stations) was 0.96 with the correlation coefficient of 0.82. Pearson correlation coefficient between checklist scores and the global score was calculated as r=0.89 (p<0.001). Test validity was at a very good level. Oral examination of OSCE in psychiatry is feasible for residents in this field and bears appropriate validity and reliability.