Development of a survey to measure parent satisfaction in a pediatric intensive care unit

Objective: To use classic survey methodology to develop a specific survey t ool that can assess parent satisfaction with medical care in a pediatric in tensive care setting. Design: Application of survey design methodology to develop and analyze a p arent satisfaction survey. Setting: A pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) in a large teaching hospita l. Subjects: Sixty-six parents of children admitted to a PICU. Results: A four-stage process of item selection, item reduction, pretesting , and test analysis was used to create a 23-item parent satisfaction survey that was statistically analyzed and developed specifically for the PICU se tting. The survey tool was developed with the input of parents of children admitted to a PICU, and it was administered to parents in the PICU. The res ultant survey was analyzed for validity and reliability. Both test-retest a nd internal consistency reliability were evaluated. This design yielded a s urvey with acceptable reliability, as demonstrated by a reliability coeffic ient of 0.8275. Test-retest reliability also showed good correlation of ans wers. Validity was partially established by including parents in the identi fication of survey topics. Conclusions: Classic survey design methodology was applied to develop a spe cific satisfaction survey in a pediatric inpatient setting. This stepwise m ethod yielded a parent survey specific to one type of inpatient unit, and t he resultant survey tool reliably measured levels of parent satisfaction wi th medical care in that area. This study demonstrates the feasibility of ap plying classic survey methodology to develop a statistically analyzed paren t satisfaction survey for an inpatient setting.