Moral Courage Scale for Physicians

The Moral Courage Scale for Physicians (MCSP) was developed by William Martinez, Sigall Bell, Jason Etchegaray, and Lisa Lehmann with funding from the Gold Foundation, American Philosophical Society, and the National Institutes of Health. Several items in the MCSP were adapted from the Professional Moral Courage Scale developed by Sekerka et al (J Business Ethics. 2009;89:565–579). The standard citation for the MCSP is: Martinez W, Bell SK, Etchegaray JM, Lehmann LS. Measuring Moral Courage for Interns and Residents: Scale Development and Initial Psychometrics. Academic Medicine. 2016 Oct;91(10):1431-38.

Permission

We consider the MCSP to be publicly available.   You are free to download and use the scales in your research and/or to assess moral courage of health professionals in a healthcare setting.  We do ask, however, that you cite the scale correctly if and when you use them.  In addition, we do appreciate knowing and being able to track the different ways our scale is being used. We appreciate emails letting us know how you plan to use the scale and letting us know your experience after using it.  Please email William Martinez, MD, MS, at william.martinez@vanderbilt.edu.

Scoring

All scale items are measured on a 7-point Likert scale from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (7).

A summary score for the scale may be computed using the following formula: scale score = (mean of the scale items – 1) x (50/3). Thus, summary scores range from 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

Back Home   

Moral Courage Scale for Physicians