Strategies to measure nursing home residents' satisfaction and preferencesrelated to incontinence and mobility care: Implications for evaluating intervention effects
Sf. Simmons et Jf. Schnelle, Strategies to measure nursing home residents' satisfaction and preferencesrelated to incontinence and mobility care: Implications for evaluating intervention effects, GERONTOLOGI, 39(3), 1999, pp. 345-355
This study compared four different interview strategies to measure 111 inco
ntinent nursing home residents' "met need" related to incontinence and mobi
lity care. Strategies were compared on criteria related to ceiling effects
and stability. Four methods were used: questions that used the term "satisf
action" and direct questions about preferences that did not use the term "s
atisfaction" and which could be translated into three indirect measures of
met need. To facilitate a comparison among the four methods, a statement of
satisfaction was interpreted as met need. All of these measures were then
compared to direct observations of care processes. Residents were more stab
le in their reports indicating that their care needs were met than they wer
e in their reports that their needs were not met. The direct satisfaction q
uestions produced information most characterized by ceiling effects compare
d to information elicited by the preference questions. Despite high reporte
d rates of met need as assessed by two of the four methods, direct observat
ions revealed low frequencies of care provision.