Development and psychometric validation of the hospitalized patients' expectations for treatment scale-clinician version

Bindong Dai; Chunfeng Xiao; Yufei Wang; Tao Li; Yanping Duan; Yinan Jiang; Lili Shi; Xia Hong; Wenqi Geng; Jiaojiao Hu; Jinya Cao; Jing Wei

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1325013

Development and psychometric validation of the hospitalized patients' expectations for treatment scale-clinician version

Front Psychiatry. 2024 Jan 12:14:1325013. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1325013. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Bindong Dai^#¹, Chunfeng Xiao^#¹, Yufei Wang^{1

2}, Tao Li¹, Yanping Duan¹, Yinan Jiang¹, Lili Shi¹, Xia Hong¹, Wenqi Geng¹, Jiaojiao Hu¹, Jinya Cao¹, Jing Wei¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychological Medicine, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.
² 4+4 Medical Doctor Program, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Objective: Patient safety management systems in general hospitals require a comprehensive tool for assessing the expectations of inpatients across different wards. This study aimed to develop and psychometrically validate a new scale, the hospitalized patients' expectations for treatment scale-clinician version (HOPE-C), to meet this requirement.

Methods: We interviewed 35 experts and 10 inpatients while developing the HOPE-C scale. The scale was initially designed with three dimensions: clinicians' expectations regarding doctor-patient communication, clinicians' expectations regarding treatment outcome, and clinicians' expectations regarding disease management. We recruited 200 inpatients from a general hospital in China. At the same time, 51 clinicians were assigned to the enrolled patients who completed the HOPE-C to examine the reliability, validity, and psychometric characteristics of the questionnaire. We applied item analysis, assessed construct validity, evaluated internal consistency, and conducted a test-retest reliability analysis over 7 days.

Results: Both exploratory and confirmatory analyses supported a 2-dimensional structure, comprising doctor-patient communication expectations and treatment outcome expectations, with favorable model fit parameters (root mean square residual [RMR] = 0.042, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.049, comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.989, Tucker-Lewis index [TLI] = 0.984). Item analysis demonstrated appropriate item design (r = 0.744-0.961). The scale exhibited strong internal consistency, with Cronbach's α values of 0.884, 0.816, and 0.840 for the overall scale, the doctor-patient communication expectation subscale, and the treatment outcome expectation subscale, respectively. The 7-day test-retest reliability was 0.996 (p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the HOPE-C is a reliable and valid assessment tool for measuring the expectations of inpatients in general hospitals. It effectively identifies patients' expectations concerning doctor-patient communication and treatment outcomes.

Keywords: clinician; doctor-patient relationship; general hospital; patient safety; treatment expectation.

Grants and funding

The authors declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by the Capital Fund for Health Improvement and Research (2022-2-4012), the National High-Level Hospital Clinical Research Fund (2022-PUMCH-B-093), the Education Fund for the Reform and Construction of Comprehensive Evaluation and Assessment System in Clinical Medicine (X226105), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (T234100) to JW.