Abstract
Background
Intermediate care (IC) services are a key component of integrated care for elderly people, providing a link between hospital and home through provision of rehabilitation and health and social care. The Patient Reported Experience Measures (PREMs) are designed to measure user experience of care in IC settings.
Objective
To examine the feasibility and the scaling properties of the Italian version of PREMs questionnaires for use in IC services.
Methods
A cross-sectional survey was conducted on consecutive users of 1 home-based and 4 bed-based IC services in Emilia-Romagna (Italy). The main outcome measure was the PREMs questionnaire results. PREMs for each home- and bed-based IC services were translated, back-translated, and adapted through consensus among the members of the advisory board and pilot testing of face validity in 15 patients. A total of 199 questionnaires were returned from users of bed-based services and 185 were returned by mail from users of home-based services. The return rates and responses were examined. Mokken analysis was used to examine the scaling properties of the PREMs.
Results
Analysis performed on the bed-based PREMs (N=154) revealed that 13 items measured the same construct and formed a moderate-strength scale (Loevinger H=0.488) with good reliability (Cronbach’s alpha =0.843). Analysis of home-based PREMs (N=134 records) revealed that 15 items constituted a strong scale (Loevinger H=0.543) with good reliability (Cronbach’s alpha =0.875).
Conclusion
The Italian versions of the bed- and home-based IC-PREMs questionnaires proved to be valid and reliable tools to assess patients’ experience of care. Future plans include monitoring user experience over time in the same facilities and in other Italian IC settings for between-service benchmarking.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the colleagues of the working groups of Bologna Local Health Authority and of the community hospitals for their support in the conduction of the study: Mara Morini, Luca Barbieri, Laura Biagetti, Juri Coccia, Loretta Muraro, Manuela Petroni, Chiara Petrucci, Claudio Tacconi, Giulia Pieri, Vittorio Donini, Sabrina Gabrielli, Luigi Baldi, Loretta Vallicelli, Antonella Dallari, Stefano Boni, Andrea Spanò, and Alessandra Raggi.
Disclosure
The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.