Person-centered Climate Questionnaire-Patient in English: A psychometric evaluation study in long-term care settings

There is increasing evidence that person-centered care improves nursing home residents' quality of life. Despite the clear focus of person-centered care on enhancing care for residents and engaging residents in care, there are few options available for measuring person-centered care from the perspective of the elder residents.

The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the English version of the Person-centered Climate Questionnaire-Patient (PCQ-P) in U.S. long-term care settings.

A total of 189 older adults from six nursing homes in the Midwestern United States were included. Convergent validity and known-group comparison were examined for construct validity. Exploratory factor analysis and second-order confirmatory factor analysis were utilized to examine the factor structure. Reliability was tested using Cronbach's alpha values for internal consistency.

This study demonstrated a substantial convergent validity of the PCQ-P in English as higher scores correlated significantly with higher resident life satisfaction (r=0.459), and the satisfactory construct validity as evidenced by a significantly higher mean PCQ-P score from residents in higher quality nursing homes. Factor analysis demonstrated that the PCQ-P had three factors (hospitality, safety, and everydayness) in U.S. nursing home residents. The PCQ-P showed satisfactory internal consistency reliability (α=0.89).

The English version of the PCQ-P is a valid and reliable tool to directly measure the perceptions of the person-centered climate in the U.S nursing homes. The simple and straightforward PCQ-P items are easy to administer to nursing home residents. Consequently, clinical staff can utilize the PCQ-P to assess the unit climate, and evaluate outcomes of person-centered interventions.