Development and psychometric properties of the “Patient Assessment of Transitions in Healthcare settings (PATH)” questionnaire

Background The quality of care pathways that include transitions between healthcare settings may be increased by improving patients’ experiences of their care journey. Patients’ experiences can be explored through in-depth interviews, but valid and reliable patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) can be a useful and more cost-effective way of assessing patient-experienced quality. The aim of this study was to develop a valid, generic measure for assessment of PAtient-experience of Transitions in Healthcare settings, PATH. We evaluated the structural validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability of the PATH questionnaire in a Danish patient population with a range of diagnoses, comorbidities and diversity in age. Methods The PATH questionnaire was developed and tested through an iterative 3-step pilot-test and a comprehensive field-test. Results We found an 18-item version of PATH to be content valid and to have internal consistency and structural validity for a 2-factor solution with a single item scored separately. We found satisfactory test-retest reliability. Conclusions PATH is a generic, content valid, and reliable patient-reported experience measure for the assessment of patient-experienced quality in healthcare transitions. The PATH questionnaire is available for use in quality monitoring and quality improvement research, but we recommend further testing of its measurement properties alongside its practical application.