The German version of the self-efficacy questionnaire (SE-12-G) for measuring clinical communication skills in a sample of healthcare professionals: translation and psychometric properties.

BACKGROUND

Effective and patient-oriented communication is essential for healthcare professionals (HCPs) to deliver high quality care. Assessing communication skills training effectiveness relies on validated measures, such as the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (SE-12). Yet, a validated German version is lacking. Thus, we aimed to translate and adapt the SE-12 into German and assess its psychometric properties.

METHODS

We translated the original SE-12 into German using the team translation protocol and adapted it to our context. We added a subscale on the importance of communication skills, resulting in the SE-12-G with two subscales (confidence and importance-scale). We conducted cognitive interviews with six HCPs to assess the comprehensibility of the SE-12-G. Afterwards,  = 152 HCPs completed the SE-12-G at two measurement time-points. We descriptively analyzed completion rate as indicator for acceptance, reliability (Cronbach’s α) and item characteristics (i.e., item difficulty, corrected item-total correlations, inter-item correlations). A confirmatory factor analysis was performed including three a priori hypothesized models including one that represents the factor structure performed by the authors of the original SE-12.

RESULTS

Cognitive interviews indicated that the translation and comprehensibility assessment of the German version of the SE-12 (SE-12-G) showed high face and content validity. Completion rate exceeded 98% for all items. Mean item difficulty across all items and subscales was 0.79, (ranging between 0.71 and 0.97), inter-item correlations ranged between 0.02 and 0.73 for the confidence-scale and between 0.044 and 0.533 for the importance-scale. Ceiling effects were present for half of the items on the confidence-scale, and for all items on the importance-scale. Internal consistency yielded a Cronbach’s α of 0.88 for the confidence-scale and 0.83 for the importance-scale. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a one-factor structure for both subscales of the SE-12-G.

CONCLUSION

The translated and adapted German version of the SE-12 shows good levels of acceptance and reliability. Similarly to the original version, we found high ceiling effects in some items. Compared to the original factor structure, a one-factor structure was identified for both subscales in our sample. The SE-12-G should be evaluated in further studies and modification of some items should be considered.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-025-07681-y.