Psychometric assessment of the consideRATE questions, a new measure of serious illness experience, with an online simulation study.
Catherine H Saunders, Marie-Anne Durand, Kathryn B Kirkland and 3 others
PMID 35260261WHAT IT FOUND
Scores on a new brief serious illness experience questionnaire rose as simulated clinicians responded better to patient preferences.
Scores also changed when stories changed and stayed similar when the same story was repeated.
Key findings
01Mean consideRATE scores were 1.7 after bad stories, 2.1 after neutral stories, and 3.4 after good stories at time point one.
02The consideRATE scores correlated strongly with the CANHELP Lite (r=0.77; p<0.001) and moderately with the OPENness to Feedback item (r=0.57; p<0.001).
03The measure responded to change between most stories, did not respond from bad to neutral, and was stable when the same story was repeated (r=0.77).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study tested imagined hospital stories in online members of the public, not actual seriously ill patients or families, so the authors state validity and reliability are limited to simulated experiences. Participants came from online panels, and the authors note concerns about the quality and representativeness of panel respondents. The stories were written at a sixth-grade reading level, but the authors say written stories may have limited full participation by people with low literacy. The measure did not respond to change when participants moved from a bad story to a neutral story. Subgroup assessment for people with low health literacy and low education was limited by lower participant numbers. The authors did not test whether the items form one single score, because the measure is meant to capture separate aspects of experience.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not report a conflict-of-interest statement. Publication types list research support from NIH, extramural.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that the consideRATE questions improve care or measure real patients' experiences. The study used online members of the public imagining written hospital stories, and the authors state validity and reliability are limited to those simulated experiences.