Are family members suitable proxies for transitional care unit residents when collecting satisfaction information?

To examine the agreement and association of elders' responses with family member proxy responses using the same, previously validated satisfaction instrument on both groups of respondents.

Satisfaction data came from transitional care unit residents and family members (N = 462 paired responses) from one facility and were collected between 1999 and 2000. The satisfaction questionnaire consisted of 17 items evaluating the art of care, technical quality, efficacy, amenities of the care environment, and global satisfaction. Bias indexes and intraclass correlation coefficients were used to examine the satisfaction scores.

In general, proxy satisfaction ratings were higher than ratings of residents. The results also show that proxy ratings varied less from resident ratings for the amenity items, which were considered the most concrete items. Proxy ratings were much higher for the art of care and efficacy domain items, which were considered the least concrete items.

The results of this investigation show that proxy ratings do not necessarily substitute for resident ratings.