Background: Although significant research is devoted to transitions of care at discharge, few measures assess the quality of transitions into the hospital. Our objective was to develop a caregiver-reported quality measure to evaluate the pediatric hospital admission experience.
Methods: Measure development included: (1) adapting items from existing instruments; (2) an expert-consensus process to prioritize survey items; (3) cognitive pretesting with caregivers (n = 16); and (4) pilot testing revised items (n = 27). Subsequently, the survey was administered to caregivers at 2 children's hospitals and 1 general hospital from February 2020 through November 2021. Item reduction statistics and exploratory factor analysis were performed followed by confirmatory factor analysis. Domain scores were calculated using a top-box approach. Known-group validity and indices of model fit were evaluated.
Results: The initial survey included 25 items completed by 910 caregivers. Following item reduction and the exploratory factor analysis, 14 items were mapped to 4 domains: (1) Patient and Family Engagement, (2) Information Sharing, (3) Effectiveness of Care Delivery, and (4) Timeliness of Care. The confirmatory factor analysis and validity testing supported the factor structure. Domain scores ranged from 49% (95% confidence interval, 46-53) for Timelines of Care to 81% (95% confidence interval, 65-84) for Patient and Family Engagement, with significant differences between general and children's hospitals in Information Sharing and Effectiveness of Care Delivery.
Conclusions: A 4-domain caregiver-reported hospital admission experience measure demonstrated acceptable validity and psychometric properties across children's and general hospitals. This measure can be used to evaluate the quality of transitions into the hospital and to focus quality improvement efforts.
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