Psychometric testing of the Family Satisfaction with Decision Making subscale (FS-ICU/DM) in an acute care pediatric hospital setting

Abstract

Aim. This paper is a report of the psychometric testing of the Family Satisfaction with Decision Making subscale of the Family Satisfaction with Care in the Intensive Care Unit questionnaire to determine whether it would be suitable to use as a primary outcome measure in a proposed randomized control trial in a pediatric hospital setting.Background. Parents have reported that relinquishing important aspects of their role is the most stressful element of a child’s hospitalization. Concerns over communication and decision-making processes have been particularly cited. Therefore, increasing parents’ satisfaction with their child’s care and responding to their priorities are key to improving quality of care. Instruments have been developed to measure global satisfaction with care among parents of hospitalized children. However none of these focus specifically on communication and decision-making processes. One instrument was found that measures these items, but in an adult intensive care unit, not a pediatric setting.Design/method. As a component of a larger study, a psychometric study was conducted in 2010 to assess the properties of the Family Satisfaction with Decision Making subscale in a pediatric setting. Eighty-two parents of children admitted to a large metropolitan pediatric hospital completed the subscale prior to their child’s transfer and/or discharge from the hospital.Results/Conclusion. The psychometric data indicated that the Family Satisfaction with Decision Making subscale showed evidence of good reliability and validity as a primary outcome measure that could be used for a future randomized controlled trial in a pediatric setting.