title: Use of an Item Bank to Develop Two Short-Form FAMCARE Scales to Measure Family Satisfaction With Care in the Setting of Serious Illness.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Family satisfaction is an important and commonly used research measure. Yet current measures of family satisfaction are lengthy and may be unnecessarily burdensome--particularly in the setting of serious illness.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To use an item bank to develop short forms of the Family Satisfaction with End-of-Life Care (FAMCARE) scale, which measures family satisfaction with care.
  
  
  METHODS
  To shorten the existing 20-item FAMCARE measure, item response theory parameters from an item bank were used to select the most informative items. The psychometric properties of the new short-form scales were examined. The item bank was based on data from family members from an ethnically diverse sample of 1983 patients with advanced cancer.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Evidence for the new short-form scales supported essential unidimensionality. Reliability estimates from several methods were relatively high, ranging from 0.84 for the five-item scale to 0.94 for the 10-item scale across different age, gender, education, ethnic, and relationship groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The FAMCARE-10 and FAMCARE-5 short-form scales evidenced high reliability across sociodemographic subgroups and are potentially less burdensome and time-consuming scales for monitoring family satisfaction among seriously ill patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA; Institute for Translational Epidemiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA. Electronic address: Katherine.ornstein@mssm.edu.
authors.forename: Katherine A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Ornstein
authors.affiliation: Research Division, Hebrew Home at Riverdale, New York, New York, USA; Measurement and Data Management Core, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, New York, USA; Columbia University Stroud Center, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Jeanne A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Teresi
authors.affiliation: Research Division, Hebrew Home at Riverdale, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ocepek-Welikson
authors.affiliation: Research Division, Hebrew Home at Riverdale, New York, New York, USA; Measurement and Data Management Core, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, New York, USA; Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Care, Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Mildred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ramirez
authors.affiliation: Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Diane E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Meier
authors.affiliation: Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: R Sean
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Morrison
authors.affiliation: Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Albert L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Siu
mesh_terms: D017028:Caregivers; D003258:Consumer Behavior / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015995:Prevalence; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology
keywords: Family satisfaction; item banks; item response theory; short-form FAMCARE