Abstract
BackgroundContinuity of care (COC) has become a primary point of concern for care providers in both developed and developing countries, which is regarded as the “cornerstone of care” and an “essential element” of good health care. A robust and proper instrument is of necessity to identify problems and evaluate intervention aimed at improving continuity of care. This study aimed to adapt Nijmegen continuity questionnaire (NCQ) into a Chinese version (NCQ-C) and to delineate the status of COC as well as explore its influencing factors for hypertensive patients in China.MethodsA forward-back-translation procedure was adopted for the determination of the adaption of NCQ. Then a total of 448 patients completed questionnaires and 24-h ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM). Proper indexes were calculated to test the reliability and validity of NCQ-C. Logistic analysis were used to detect the influencing factors of COC.ResultsThe NCQ-C had excellent intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.855 and internal consistency of seven dimensions varied from 0.907 to 0.944. The item-content validity index ranged from 0.71 to 1.00. For construct validity, seven-factor structure was confirmed as original questionnaire and all the fit indices indicated acceptable levels. Gender, education level, medical insurance and frequency of family visits, blood pressure level, depression status as well as general health perception were demonstrated to be statistically related to COC.ConclusionsIn addition, all the parameters of ABPM were negatively significant with COC. The NCQ-C has shown acceptable level of reliability and validity. The related factors of COC should arouse care providers’ attention.
Highlights
Continuity of care (COC) has become a primary point of concern for care providers in both developed and developing countries, which is regarded as the “cornerstone of care” and an “essential element” of good health care
A post graduate student majoring in nursing and a professor who specializes in continuity of care, translated it into Chinese based on the English version of Nijmegen continuity questionnaire (NCQ) with the help of healthcare professionals and linguists in China
Reliability The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) presented as the correlation between pretest and post-test of NCQ into a Chinese version (NCQ-C) was 0.855 (CI: 0.736–0.933)
Summary
Continuity of care (COC) has become a primary point of concern for care providers in both developed and developing countries, which is regarded as the “cornerstone of care” and an “essential element” of good health care. The numbers of patients with one or more chronic diseases are increasing and these patients are prone to go through referral among different medical settings and communicate with various health care providers [2], which lead to the According to literature review, COC first appeared in the 1950s [9,10,11]. It is a complex concept which has changed over time due to contextual factors. Around mid-1970s, COC was thought to be the synonym of building
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