Validation of a patient-centered culturally sensitive health care office staff inventory

Research suggests that patient-perceived culturally sensitive health care encompasses multiple components of the health care delivery system including the cultural sensitivity of front desk office staff. Despite this, research on culturally sensitive health care focuses almost exclusively on provider behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge. This is due in part to the paucity of instruments available to assess the cultural sensitivity of front desk office staff. Thus, the objective of the present study is to determine the psychometric properties of the pilot Tucker-Culturally Sensitive Health Care Office Staff Inventory-Patient Form (T-CSHCOSI-PF), which is an instrument designed to enable patients to evaluate the patient-defined cultural sensitivity of their front desk office staff.

A sample of 1648 adult patients was recruited by staff at 67 health care sites across the United States. These patients anonymously completed the T-CSHCOSI-PF, a demographic data questionnaire, and a patient satisfaction questionnaire. Findings Confirmatory factor analyses of the TCSHCOSI-PF revealed that this inventory has two factors with high internal consistency reliability and validity (Cronbach's αs=0.97 and 0.95).

It is concluded that the T-CSHCOSI-PF is a psychometrically strong and useful inventory for assessing the cultural sensitivity of front desk office staff. This inventory can be used to support culturally sensitive health care research, evaluate the job performance of front desk office staff, and aid in the development of trainings designed to improve the cultural sensitivity of these office staff.