Development of an instrument to measure patient perception of the quality of nursing care

Abstract

Although patient satisfaction has been given considerable attention in health care, analysis of the conceptual and measurement limitations of existing measures indicates that a more elemental approach to obtaining patients' perspectives is warranted. In this investigation we developed and evaluated the psychometric properties of an instrument designed to measure patients' perceptions of the degree to which their needs were met while hospitalized. This 15-item instrument, Patient Perception of Hospital Experience with Nursing (PPHEN), based on Swanson-Kauffman's framework of caring, is internally consistent and represents a single construct best described as feeling cared for. The relationship of PPHEN to other measures demonstrates concurrent validity; moreover, the scale is responsive to differences in care provided, as shown by differences in means for different hospitals. PPHEN offers a brief, theoretically oriented, internally consistent, and valid patient self-report measure of nursing care. It does not require patients to compare their expectations of care with the care received but only to evaluate whether their needs were met. It promises to be useful to clinical and health services researchers.