Usefulness scale for patient information material (USE) - development and psychometric properties

Area of Science:

• Health Communication
• Psychometrics
• Patient Education

Background:

• Written health information is crucial for patient understanding of illnesses and procedures.
• A validated scale to assess patient-perceived usefulness of this material across cognitive, emotional, and behavioral domains was previously unavailable.
• This study aimed to develop and psychometrically evaluate such a scale.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate the Usefulness Scale for Patient Information Material (USE).
• To create a psychometrically sound instrument to measure patient perspectives on the usefulness of health information.
• To assess cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of information usefulness.

Main Methods:

• The Usefulness Scale for Patient Information Material (USE) was developed through a multistep process, selecting three items per subscale (cognitive, emotional, behavioral).
• Psychometric properties including reliability (Cronbach's α), structural validity (CFA), convergent/divergent validity (correlation), and criterion validity (experimental design) were tested.
• Patients received either a full or reduced information brochure on depression or low back pain and completed a questionnaire.

Main Results:

• Confirmatory factor analysis supported the scale's structural validity.
• Reliability analysis yielded high Cronbach's α values (0.84–0.94) for the total scale and subscales.
• The scale demonstrated supported convergent, divergent, and criterion validity, with significant differences between full and reduced information groups (p<.001 for all).

Conclusions:

• A new, generic scale (USE) was developed to measure the subjective usefulness of written patient information.
• The USE aligns with theoretical models for evaluating health information.
• The USE is a concise, reliable, and valid psychometric tool for assessing patient-perceived information usefulness.