Validation of the Intermountain patient perception of quality (PPQ) survey among survivors of an intensive care unit admission: a retrospective validation study.

BACKGROUND

Patients' perceptions of the quality of their hospitalization have become important to the American healthcare system. Standard surveys of perceived quality of healthcare do not focus on the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) portion of the stay. Our objective was to evaluate the construct validity and internal consistency of the Intermountain Patient Perception of Quality (PPQ) survey among patients discharged from the ICU.

METHODS

We analyzed prospectively collected results from the ICU PPQ survey of all inpatients at Intermountain Medical Center whose hospitalization included an ICU stay. We employed principal components analysis to determine the constructs present in the PPQ survey, and Cronbach's alpha to evaluate the internal consistency (reliability) of the items representing each construct.

RESULTS

We identified 5,680 patients who had completed the PPQ survey. There were three basic domains measured: nursing care, physician care, and overall perception of quality. Most of the variability was explained with the first two principal components. Constructs did not vary by type of respondent.

CONCLUSIONS

The Intermountain ICU PPQ survey demonstrated excellent construct validity across three distinct constructs. This, in addition to its previously established content validity, suggests the utility of the PPQ survey as an assay of the perceived quality of the ICU experience.