Patient-Reported Experience Measures in Adult Inpatient Settings: A Systematic Review

Background: Patient-centered ideas have become the key indicator of medical service quality, and patient-reported experience measures are ways to measure how well this idea is being implemented. There are currently numerous adult inpatient experience instruments available, and it is necessary to conduct such systematic reviews to discover any new instruments and help policymakers and researchers increase the likelihood of hearing true patients' voices through appropriate selection of these instruments. Objective: To identify existing adult inpatient experience measures and to critically appraise their development design and psychometric testing results. Methods: EMBASE, PUBMED, Cochrane, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), PsycINFO, and ProQuest were searched from inception to March 2023. A comprehensive review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines was conducted. Studies were identified via specific search terms and inclusion criteria. The methodological quality assessment was evaluated according to the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) checklist. Results: A total of 29 articles reporting on 23 instruments were included. Each instrument demonstrated both satisfaction and disappointment during the development process and psychometric testing with the recommended criteria of the COSMIN checklist. Pilot tests and cognitive interviews were ignored or not reported in 9 studies. Only 5 studies evaluated the content validity. Among all measurement properties, internal consistency and structural validity were the two most frequently measured attributes. None of the 29 included studies assessed the responsiveness or measurement error of the scales. Conclusion: Among a variety of adult inpatient experience instruments, only a limited number of studies were methodologically sound. Further research still needs to be conducted for the development and validation of patient-reported experience measures. New quality assessments, such as instrument utility, also should be implemented to provide a more complete evaluation of instruments in the information era.