Measuring person-centred care in a sub-acute health care setting.
OBJECTIVE
A more appropriate tool to measure the client experience of person-centred care is required to complement other existing measures of quality. A tool developed in the United Kingdom was trialled to determine its utility with a frail older Australian population.


METHODS
A random sample of clients recently discharged from a sub-acute setting over a 6-month period in 2005 were sent a questionnaire and invited to respond, a reply-paid envelope being provided for the return of the questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised the 20-item tool and space to provide additional qualitative comments.


METHODS
The inpatient wards of a sub-acute facility in Melbourne.


METHODS
From the random sample of 144 discharged clients, 78 responded to the questionnaire.


METHODS
20-item Patient-Centred Inpatient Scale (P-CIS) developed by Coyle and Williams (2001).


RESULTS
Overall, there was a fundamental core of person-centredness as demonstrated by a ratio score of 0.68. Personalisation and respect dimensions are the main strengths of person-centred care in the health care setting in which the P-CIS was trialled, with personalisation scoring 0.75 and respect scoring 0.77. The miscellaneous components scored 0.69. The findings show that areas of the client experience warranting priority quality improvement effort are specific to the dimensions of empowerment (0.58), information (0.58) and approachability/availability (0.43).


CONCLUSIONS
The P-CIS demonstrates the potential to be a contributing component that informs the monitoring and improvement of quality person-centred care in Australian inpatient health care settings.
Davis
Sandra
S
School of Rural Health, Monash University, 37 Rowan Street, Bendigo, VIC 3552, Australia. sam.davis@med.monash.edu.au
Byers
Suzanne
S
Walsh
Fay
F
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006302:Health Services Research; D006707:Homes for the Aged / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010351:Patient Discharge; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018802:Patient-Centered Care / Q000592:standards*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D019467:Subacute Care / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014739:Victoria