Designing and psychometric assessment of the moral intelligence scale for healthcare professionals.

The moral intelligence of healthcare professionals in the cardiac operating room is one of the most important aspects of professional competence. However, moral intelligence is an abstract and multidimensional concept that needs to be clarified and described based on organizational culture and environment. Therefore, there is a need to design a specific scale for measuring the moral intelligence of healthcare professionals in the cardiac operating room. This study aims to design and assess the psychometric properties of a moral intelligence scale for healthcare professionals in the cardiac operating room. The present study was a mixed method study with a sequential exploratory approach. The research was conducted in 2023-2024 in Iran. The first phase data were collected from 20 healthcare professionals and were analyzed by conventional content analysis method. In the second phase, the validity and reliability of the instrument were evaluated by involving 300 healthcare professionals in the cardiac operating room. The moral intelligence of health care professionals in the cardiac operating room was defined as moral sensitivity combined with moral commitment and moral courage for the provision of quality care that respects the principles of medical ethics. After deducing the conceptual framework, the moral intelligence scale for healthcare professionals in the cardiac operating room was developed with three dimensions: "moral sensitivity," "moral commitment," and "moral courage." 11 items were removed during testing to ensure content validity. Face validity was confirmed with impact scores > 1.5 for all items. A scale was developed through factor analysis with three factors that accounted for 73.04% of the observed variance. The instrument's reliability using Cronbach's alpha coefficient calculation was reported as 0.94 for the entire instrument. The testretest showed no statistically significant difference between the pre and post-test scores of moral intelligence (p = 0.51). The moral intelligence scale demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties. The moral intelligence scale for health care professionals in the cardiac operating room demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties. This instrument may serve to assess the moral intelligence of healthcare professionals and determine the need for educational interventions to reduce the ethical challenges and improve the moral intelligence of this healthcare.