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BACKGROUND: Patient device acceptance might be essential in identifying patients at risk for adverse patient-reported outcomes following implantation of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD). We examined the validity and reliability of the Florida Patient Acceptance Scale (FPAS) and identified correlates of device acceptance in a Dutch cohort of ICD patients. METHODS: Patients with a first-time ICD (N = 272, mean age = 59.2 ± 11.9, 82% men) recruited from the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, or the Medisch Spectrum Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands completed the FPAS, the Type D Scale, and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. RESULTS: Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that eliminating three items from the FPAS, leaving 12 items contributing to three factors, is equivalent to the original four-factor version of the FPAS. The abbreviated FPAS had a high internal consistency both for the total scale and all subscales, with Cronbach's alphas ranging from 0.76 to 0.82. Anxiety (odds ratio OR: 9.75; 95% confidence interval CI: 2.38-39.87; P = 0.002), depression (OR: 2.96; 95% CI: 0.98-8.93; P = 0.05), and the distressed (Type D) personality (OR: 5.04; 95% CI: 1.50-16.92; P = 0.01), but not demographic and clinical factors including shocks, were significant independent correlates of poor device acceptance. CONCLUSION: A shortened 12-item, three-factor version of the FPAS was shown to be a valid and internally consistent instrument to assess device acceptance in Dutch ICD patients. Psychological but not clinical factors were the primary correlates of device acceptance, which underlines the importance of taking into account the patient's psychological profile when seeking to identify patients at risk for adjustment difficulties after ICD implantation.
Versteeg et al. (Mon,) studied this question.