Patients’ Assessment of Transitions in Healthcare Settings: Development and Psychometric Analysis of the PATH questionnaire

Abstract BackgroundQuality of care in pathways that include transitions between healthcare settings may be increased by improving patients’ experiences of their care journey. In-depth interviews can explore patients’ experiences, but valid and reliable patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) can be a useful and more cost-effective way of assessing patient-experienced quality. The aim of this study was to develop a valid, generic measure for assessment of PAtient-experience of Transitions in Healthcare settings, PATH. We evaluated the structural validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability of the PATH questionnaire in an adult Danish patient population with a range of diagnoses and comorbidities.MethodsThe PATH questionnaire was developed through a scoping review and interviews, and tested through an iterative 3-step pilot-test and a comprehensive field-test, between December 2022 and April 2023.ResultsWe found an 18-item version of PATH to be content valid and to have internal consistency and structural validity for a 2-factor solution with a single item scored separately. We found satisfactory test-retest reliability.ConclusionsPATH is a generic, content valid, and reliable patient-reported experience measure for the assessment of patient-experienced quality in healthcare transitions. The PATH questionnaire is available for use in quality monitoring and quality improvement research, but we recommend further testing of its measurement properties alongside its practical application.