Psychometric assessment of the Family Satisfaction in the Intensive Care Unit questionnaire in the United Kingdom

Purpose: To establish the psychometric properties of the Family Satisfaction in the Intensive Care Unit 24-item (FS-ICU-24) questionnaire in the United Kingdom. Materials and methods: The Family-Reported Experiences Evaluation study recruited family members of patients staying at least 24 hours in 20 participating intensive care units. Questionnaires were evaluated for nonresponse, floor/ceiling effects, redundancy, and construct validity. Internal consistency was evaluated with item-to-own scale correlations and Cronbach alpha. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses were used to explore the underlying structure. Results: Twelve thousand three hundred forty-six family members of 6380 patients were recruited and 7173 (58%) family members of 4615 patients returned a completed questionnaire. One family member per patient was included in the psychometric assessment. Six items had greater than 10% nonresponse; 1 item had a ceiling effect; and 11 items had potential redundancy. Internal consistency was high (Cronbach alpha, overall .96; satisfaction with care, .94; satisfaction with decision making, .93). The 2-factor solution was not a good fit. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that satisfaction with decision making encompassed 2 constructs-satisfaction with information and satisfaction with the decision-making process. Conclusions: The Family Satisfaction in the Intensive Care Unit 24-item questionnaire demonstrated good psychometric properties in the United Kingdom setting. Construct validity could be improved by use of 3 domains and some scope for further improvement was identified. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.