Validated family-centered survey questionnaire for parents’ and patients’ experiences during inpatient pediatric hospital stay

This family-centered survey questionnaire consists of 68 questions that assess various aspects of care experiences during inpatient pediatric hospital stays. Questions can be used individually to measure specific performance but 35 rating questions can also be summarized into domain scores.

The 68 questions of the survey can be divided into 3 groups:
1. 26 background questions that mostly provide information for comparisons across different demographic and patient groups:
a. 19 demographic questions or questions that distinguish different groups of patients (e.g. surgical vs. medical)
b. 3 skip questions to identify eligibility of following questions
c. 4 questions about the hospital environment
2. 35 questions that are part of 8 domains:
a. Partnership with nurses (9 questions)
b. Partnership with doctors (9 questions)
c. Identification of Attending Physician (1 question)
d. Patient Comfort (2 questions)
e. Communications about Medications (2 questions)
f. Admission (2 questions)
g. Discharge and Home Care Preparation (6 questions)
h. Emotional Satisfaction (4 questions)
3. 5 overall rating questions to be used individually
4. 2 open-ended questions allowing parents to write individual comments

Type of Score: The majority of the survey questions are categorical in nature. Ordinal measures enable the rating of experiences, dichotomous measures are used to assess if subsequent questions apply to the experiences of parents and the patient but a small number of questions are open-ended to allow any additional or more detailed comments. Domain scores are calculated as the percentage of domain questions answered in the most positive response category, the top-box, of all the domain questions the respondent answered.

Target Population: The target population is one of the parents, 18 years or older, of a child that stayed for at least one day in an inpatient unit at the hospital and was discharged during the previous time period, e.g. the last month or the last quarter.

Timeframe: Monthly or Quarterly