From: Exploring laypeople’s epistemic beliefs about medicine – a factor-analytic survey study
Factor | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
Research in medicine has shown that there is one clear answer to most problems. | .541 | ||||
If one has to decide between different therapy advices, one should only heed the physician’s advice. | .533 | ||||
If physicians address themselves to the investigation of a question, they will find the correct answer to almost all questions. | .507 | ||||
Medical knowledge is indefeasible. | .445 | ||||
If different physicians predict the progress of a person’s disease, they almost always agree. | .412 | ||||
In medicine, facts speak for themselves. | .386 | ||||
Some day medical researchers will be able to clear up all medical questions. | .355 | ||||
Medical textbooks almost always contain reliable statements with regard to medical research. | -.719 | ||||
Medical textbooks are a trustable source for gathering medical findings. | -.718 | ||||
One can almost always receive verified medical information from medical textbooks. | -.583 | ||||
One should almost always critically scrutinize medical information from textbooks. | .522 | ||||
One can almost always receive verified medical information from the Internet. | .766 | ||||
The Internet almost always contains reliable statements with regard to medical research. | .710 | ||||
The Internet is a trustable source for gathering medical findings. | .538 | ||||
One should almost always critically scrutinize medical information from the Internet. | -.486 | ||||
Finally one can only trust the medical advice of someone who has the (same) disease. | .663 | ||||
People who have a disease usually know better what to do than physicians. | .569 | ||||
The knowledge gained by medical research is mostly not applicable to everyday life. It only refers to idealized experiments in the laboratory. | .466 | ||||
In choosing a therapy one should only follow the advices of a general practitioner, even though the latest medical research potentially shows different results. | .421 | ||||
Scientific theories in medicine, that we currently assume to be right, can be confuted in the future. | .599 | ||||
Even medical knowledge has to be revised over and over. | .563 | ||||
The viewpoints in medical research change constantly. | .456 | ||||
Theories in medicine can be confuted anytime. | .416 | ||||
Even though medical research deals intensively with the origin of different diseases like for example cancer, it does not find one clearly correct explanation. | .374 | ||||
Number of items per factor | 7 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
Cronbach’s α | .69 | .73 | .74 | .61 | .60 |