Children's Perceptions of Healthcare Survey.
BACKGROUND
Few validated pediatric tools exist to directly gather data about children's perceptions of their own healthcare; parent surveys are typically used as proxies. A psychometrically sound, child-focused survey captures children's unique perceptions for quality improvement.


OBJECTIVE
This study developed and evaluated reliability of a survey, assessed score differences by children's age, and compared the responses of children and parents.


METHODS
The Children's Perceptions of Healthcare Survey was developed for inpatient and outpatient quality improvement. Following expert review, the tool was administered to 237 parent-child dyads at the time of discharge from an inpatient pediatric unit (n = 121) and after outpatient clinic visits (n = 116). Responses were analyzed and compared.


RESULTS
Internal consistency reliability for the tool was high (child/adolescents: alpha = .84; parents: alpha = .86), with no significant differences by child age or child gender. Parent and child scores were significantly correlated (r = 0.29, P < .001). About half of parents' scores were higher than their children's scores.


CONCLUSIONS
This tool worked well to collect data from a wide age range of children across healthcare settings. Children's perceptions were unique; involving children in care assessment is worthwhile and captures insights missed when only parents are surveyed. The Children's Perceptions of Healthcare Survey is a valid, psychometrically sound tool to capture children's unique perspectives regarding their healthcare and may be useful for system quality improvement.
Lindeke
Linda
L
School of Nursing, University of Minnesota, 308 Harvard Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. linde001@umn.edu
Fulkerson
Jayne
J
Chesney
Mary
M
Johnson
Lauren
L
Savik
Kay
K
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010371:Pediatric Nursing; D011594:Psychometrics; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012938:Social Perception; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires