Values in the choice of treatment: replication and refinement

The Gortner Values in the Choice of Treatment Inventory is a set of statements based on the moral principles of autonomy and beneficence/nonmaleficence (Beauchamp & Childress, 1979). The inventory was developed and used with cardiac surgery patients and spouses (Gortner, Hudes, & Zyzanski, 1984) and has been replicated with a new sample of coronary artery bypass surgery or value replacement surgery patients and spouses. Significant patient-spouse correlations were obtained for the Autonomy, rs = .26, p = .03, and Beneficence/Nonmaleficence scales, rs = .38, p = .002. Repeated measures analysis of variance showed a significant main effect for the value preference of Autonomy over Beneficence/Nonmaleficence, p = .001, when the family score (arithmetical mean of patient-spouse score) was used as the unit of analysis. A refinement was done on the combined samples from this and the early trial through a separate factor analysis. The final two-factor solution suggests that a common factor and scoring solution, based on 12 inventory items, fits both family and patient data.