ArticleJournal of pharmaceutical health care and sciences2026
Validity and reliability evaluation of the Functional Assertiveness Scale for community pharmacists: a cross-sectional study.
Article in Journal of pharmaceutical health care and sciences, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundInterprofessional collaboration between physicians and pharmacists is important for ensuring medication safety. Community pharmacists play a vital role in this process through prescription recommendations to physicians. Assertiveness, defined as a communication style that attempts to enhance mutual understanding while respecting both oneself and others, is recognized as useful for making prescription recommendations. Based on the concept of assertiveness, "functional assertiveness," which focuses on achieving tasks while maintaining interpersonal relationships, has been proposed and the Functional Assertiveness Scale (FAS) was developed to evaluate it. Although functional assertiveness has been reported to be useful for achieving the task of ensuring medication safety while maintaining professional relationships with physicians, its applicability to community pharmacists has not been verified. This study aimed to investigate the reliability and validity of the FAS for Japanese community pharmacists and evaluate its utility.
methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted using an online questionnaire targeting 2,190 community pharmacists between July and September 2025. Structural validity was examined using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's α coefficient. Construct validity was verified by calculating Spearman's rank correlation coefficients between FAS scores and the Assertive Self-expression (AS) score of the Interprofessional Assertiveness Scale.
resultsAnalysis was performed on 415 participants (mean age 41.0 years; 54.9% women). EFA confirmed a two-factor structure consistent with the original scale. CFA showed good model fit based on SRMR (0.048); however, CFI (0.893) and TLI (0.867) were slightly below conventional thresholds. Cronbach's α for the total FAS was 0.85, indicating good internal consistency. Construct validity was supported by a significant positive correlation between FAS total score and AS score (rho = 0.34, p < 0.01).
conclusionsFAS demonstrated sufficient reliability and a clear two-factor structure for application among Japanese community pharmacists. Our findings suggest that FAS serves as a useful tool for objectively measuring functional assertiveness among community pharmacists. On the other hand, the CFA results indicate the need for future item optimization specifically tailored to pharmacy practice. Further studies are needed to develop a pharmacist-specific version to contribute to evaluating educational programs and enhance interpersonal communication in pharmacy practice.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.