Using cognitive interviews to improve a Psychological-Social-Spiritual Healing instrument: Voices of aging African Americans with serious illness.
Heather Coats, Anne G Rosenfeld, Janice D Crist and 2 others
PMID 29422143WHAT IT FOUND
Wording of a 53-item palliative care healing questionnaire changed after 15 seriously ill African American elders found some items unclear, hard to understand or offensive.
Eight items were deleted and eight were revised.
Key findings
01Of 53 questionnaire items, 20 were kept unchanged because all participants answered no to being unclear, hard to understand or offensive.
02The team deleted 8 items and revised 8 items, leaving 37 retained after the review.
03Illness-domain items needed the most modifications or deletions, while religious items needed the least.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample was 15 people, all African American, aged 60 to 80 years, English speaking, and recruited from one area, so it may not represent other seriously ill patients. The study tested how people understood the items; it did not show that the revised questionnaire improves palliative care or patient outcomes. The original items came from cancer and cardiac rehabilitation patients, not from aging seriously ill African Americans. All participants reported a religious affiliation, and 10 were Baptist, so wording about religion or a higher power may not fit people without that background.
Declared interests
The supplied text does not report conflicts of interest or funding, although the publication types list NIH extramural research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that the revised PSS Healing instrument works. It only shows how 15 people reacted to the wording of items, and the revised items have not been tested for clinical outcomes in this paper.