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Correspondence: All other correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Farida K. Ejaz, Margaret Blenkner Research Institute, Benjamin Rose, 850 Euclid Avenue, Suite 1100, Cleveland, OH 44114-3301. E-mail: fejaz{at}benrose.org
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Abstract |
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and above, except for one), test–retest reliability ranged from.49 to.88, and differences between families of short- and long-stay residents were in expected directions. A final instrument with 62 satisfaction and 17 background items was recommended for statewide implementation. Implications: Findings from the project can be used to further refine the instrument and protocols for use with larger populations in other states and by the federal government.
Key Words: Long-term care • Domains of satisfaction • Measurement
Although there is recognition of the fact that it is important to gather the consumer's perspective of quality, there is some debate whether consumer satisfaction falls under the purview of quality of life or quality of care. This article supports the view that quality of care is one component of quality of life in nursing homes (Phillips, 2002; Zimmerman & Bowers, 2000). Consumer satisfaction represents a subjective measure of quality of care but it affects overall quality of life because, in nursing homes, quality of care and life are inextricably linked.
Researchers believe that great strides have been made in developing objective measures of quality of care as evidenced by the Quality Indicators (QIs) based on the Minimum Data Set (MDS) in the nursing home industry. The MDS has been criticized for a lack of the consumer's perspective and a "human face" (Zimmerman & Bowers, 2000). The desire to respect and understand the subjective perspective of consumers, including those who are frail, elderly, and have some form of dementia, has gained momentum in long-term care research.
Furthermore, the input of the family member's perspective of nursing home care is also considered vital because many family members continue their caregiving role even after their relative transfers to a nursing home (Bowers, 1988; Zarit & Whitlatch, 1992). Many families visit often, retain emotional ties, and contribute to the care of residents (Naleppa, 1996; Zarit & Whitlatch, 1992). They also capture some aspects of care that residents overlook (Kleinsorge & Keonig, 1991). The residents that have little or no contact with families are in the minority.
Although family members are considered consumers of the care provided to relatives, studies have found that family and residents have different perspectives of the care received and its importance (Bleismer & Earl, 1993; Meister & Boyle, 1996; van Maris, Soberman, Murray, & Norton, 1996). Even though their views are often different, family members are likely to influence or make decisions for residents (Binstock & Spector, 1997). Given their central importance, developing methods to address the family perspective of care is critical. Therefore, investigators have used various approaches to capture the family perspective on care in nursing homes, from having additional items for families in a common instrument (Kleinsorge & Koenig, 1991) to having separate instruments for residents and families (Soberman, Murray, Norton, & van Maris, 2000).
The Ohio Department of Aging (ODA) took the approach of developing separate family and resident satisfaction instruments for statewide use as mandated by Ohio's House Bill (HB) 403. The goal was to have a set of core items in both instruments. However, additional items in each instrument would be of particular relevance to the type of consumer in question, that is, families or residents. With respect to short-term (ST) and long-term (LT) residents or their families, the decision was made to not have separate instruments. However, each of the family and resident instruments would have a set of core items common to both ST and LT residents and families, but there would be additional items of particular relevance to ST or LT consumers.
Although investigators from different institutions were responsible for the development and testing of the family and resident satisfaction instruments, they worked collaboratively on numerous aspects such as the development of the background materials, the core set of items, and methods to ensure similarities in procedures and products in the time frame allocated to them (approximately 8 months for both instruments). Thus, although there are common elements to both aspects of the project, relevant pieces of which are described in the paragraphs that follow, this article focuses on the development and testing of the family satisfaction instrument. A forthcoming article (in preparation) will describe the unique aspects of the development of the resident survey.
One guiding principle of the project was to use the existing literature on satisfaction surveys to develop instruments for residents and families. This principle was based on the recent emergence of literature on nursing home satisfaction and followed because of the cost and time limitations mandated by HB 403. Therefore, besides a historical review of findings from the National Coalition of Nursing Home Reform (National Citizens' Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, 1985), the review focused on the two recently published books on consumer satisfaction by Applebaum, Straker, and Geron (2000) and by Cohen-Mansfield, Ejaz, and Werner (2000). Other resources that were reviewed included materials from the expert panel meeting of the Nursing Home CAHPS® group to develop a "resident experience survey" (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2000) and the initial findings on quality of life in nursing homes by Kane and Kane (2000).
The development of the ODA satisfaction surveys is unique in that they are based on the information and lessons learned from analyzing three existing data sets on resident and family satisfaction. The Ohio Health Care Association, the Ohio affiliate of the American Health Care Association, a conglomerate of primarily proprietary facilities, provided investigators with family and resident satisfaction deidentified data for the year 2000. The data were from 1,984 residents and 1,907 families in 102 nursing homes. The HealthRays Alliance, a nonprofit consortium of approximately 20 facilities in Ohio, also provided us with their deidentified data sets, which were based on responses from 274 residents and 229 families from 17 participating nursing homes in the year 2000. In addition, Benjamin Rose, a long-term care facility, provided us with 5 years of longitudinal data from their resident and family satisfaction surveys. These rich data sets helped us examine items, response categories, variability of responses, items with large amounts of missing data, differences between the resident and family surveys, and psychometric properties. Further, data from the Ohio Ombudsman Office of 29,742 complaints from 1994 to 1999 were also analyzed to examine the most commonly occurring complaints.
In reviewing the literature and analyzing existing data sets, researchers capitalized on the advantages and limitations of previous instruments to design instruments that would be robust for statewide use, have a core set of meaningful items for residents and families, be relevant for both ST and LT residents, and meet the requirements mandated by HB 403.
Initial Stages of Survey Development
Based on a review of the literature and existing data sets, an initial set of 87 family satisfaction items and 23 questions on background characteristics was recommended to the Advisory Council (AC). The AC was composed of representatives from provider groups, trade associations, the State Ombudsman Office, groups representing families of nursing home residents, the Department of Health, and so on. The AC was used as an expert panel to rate the items on a 5-point scale ranging from "must ask about this" to "doesn't matter to me." On the basis of their input, the top 60 items for both the resident and family instruments were selected. Some items were important only for the family instrument, whereas others were important only for residents. However, in ensuring that a core set of common items existed in both the family and resident instruments, the next draft of the family instrument had more items than the top 60 items chosen by the AC.
In the following step, cognitive interviews were conducted with 12 nursing home residents to determine item wording and selection of response categories. This was done because a guiding principle was that resident input would drive the wording in the core set of common items and response categories because of the desire to include residents with varying degrees of cognitive ability. On the basis of these interviews, a two-step response set starting with a dichotomous response (yes or no) was recommended for the resident instrument. The response categories in the family instrument were the same but were all in one step: "yes, definitely," "yes, I think so," "no, I don't think so," "no, definitely not," and "don't know"–"not familiar with service." These response categories were originally drawn from the Home Care Satisfaction Measures instrument (Geron, 1998), which has been successfully used with over 10,000 frail elders.
After the determination of item wording in the core set of items and the response categories based on the cognitive interviews with residents, a draft of the family instrument was pilot tested with eight family members of LT and ST residents in a local nursing home. Once the family member completed the survey on his or her own, an interviewer probed the family member about difficulties completing the survey, questions that were left blank or checked with a "don't know," and his or her overall impression of the survey; the person was asked to rank 10 areas of care and services in order of importance.
On the basis of the aforementioned stages of development, an instrument was prepared for pretesting with a larger sample. The family satisfaction pretest instrument was divided into two sections. Section A comprised 97 close-ended satisfaction items that were divided into 18 domains and had one open-ended question for comments. These domains were Admission; Hands-On Care or Direct Care; Nurse Aides; Professional Nurses; Social Services; Choice and Autonomy; Meals and Dining; Activities; Spiritual Concerns; Laundry; Office Management; Receptionist; Administration; Medical Care; Physical and Occupational Therapy; Housekeeping; Environment; and Overall Satisfaction. Section B comprised 21 items on family and resident characteristics. Some of the characteristics selected were based on the research on predictors of family satisfaction with care in nursing homes (Ejaz, Noelker, Schur, Whitlatch, & Looman, in press). Both Sections A and B replicated scannable forms and included instructions for selecting the response categories and completing the instrument. Testing a scannable version was critical because the mailed statewide family survey would use a scannable form.
Respondent Selection: Process for Selecting One Family Member per Resident
Investigators, along with the AC, operationalized the definition of "family member" as being "the family member or friend or interested party who is most involved with the care of the resident." Criteria and protocols were developed to select the most involved person. Therefore, although the instrument is called the family satisfaction survey, the definition of family member is broad enough to include the family, friend, or other concerned person who is most involved with the care of a resident. It was expected that some residents would not have an involved person in their care and would be excluded from the family survey.
Two forms (a flowchart and a text form) of the Selection Criteria for Person Designated to Respond to the Ohio Nursing Home Family Satisfaction Survey were developed. Staff from 12 nursing homes were asked to review the forms. Staff from 9 facilities responded (five social workers and four administrators), and modifications were made to the criteria and the text version was recommended. The final selection criteria are presented in the Appendix.
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Sample Selection of Pretest Sites
The goal of the sampling process was to ensure that various types of facilities were represented and had a voice in the development of a statewide survey. However, because of time constraints, only one large county with a fairly representative sample of homes was selected. This county has 74 proprietary homes (the state has 72.6% proprietary homes) and 33 nonprofit and 2 government homes. Some homes are religiously affiliated, and others specifically serve minorities. The county's list of nursing homes was obtained from the Ohio Health Department. From this list, HealthRays Alliance facilities that had recently participated in their own surveys were excluded to avoid overexposure.
In the first step, nursing homes in the selected county that provided services to both LT and ST residents and accepted Medicaid, Medicare, or private pay residents were short listed. The list was divided into nursing homes that were public (county owned), proprietary, and nonprofit, and small (
60 beds), medium (61–100 beds), and large (101+ beds). The proprietary homes were selected randomly from the stratified list. However, in an effort to ensure a more diverse sample from the nonprofit sector, we purposively selected facilities that represented minority (African American) or religiously affiliated and nonsectarian nursing homes in urban, suburban, and inner city areas. (According to the Ohio Department of Health Annual Survey of Long-Term Care Facilities, 42% of the nonprofit homes in Ohio are religiously affiliated.) With this process, a list of 37 homes was compiled and 23 were contacted. Of those contacted, 10 homes refused, 2 were excluded (in 1 small home, some staff had relatives in their care, and another was deemed difficult to work with), and 11 agreed to participate. Because these 11 sites fulfilled the pretest sampling requirements of the investigators to involve facilities that served specific groups and represented proprietary and nonprofit homes that were small, medium, and large, the others were not contacted. However, an additional site was later recruited (see the paragraphs that follow).
The final pretest was composed of 12 sites from urban, suburban, and inner city areas: 1 large county facility, 5 proprietary facilities (2 large, 2 medium, and 1 small), and 6 nonprofit facilities (3 large, 1 medium, and 1 small). Of the nonprofit homes, 3 were religiously affiliated (2 Catholic and 1 Jewish), 1 served African Americans, and the other was nonsectarian and was racially mixed. All but one facility had LT and ST beds. In the state list this facility was listed as serving both LT and ST residents, but project staff discovered that it had only LT beds. Therefore, another facility with an ST unit was recruited to ensure enough ST families were represented in the sample.
Sites were asked to assemble the names and addresses of potential family respondents who fit the selection criteria of being the most involved person in the resident's care and to separate them into two lists: one for ST and the other for LT residents. Nursing home staff also provided a third list with the number of residents who had no one involved in their care. Of the 12 facilities in the pretest, we found a high of 19 (6%) residents at the county home and a low of 1 (3%) at a small suburban facility without an involved family member.
From the potential list of eligible respondents, project staff used proportionate random sampling techniques to try to select equal numbers of residents from each of the small, medium, and large facilities. These numbers differed to accommodate the anticipated 60% response rate for in-person interviews and 40% for mailed surveys (Prawitz, Lawrence, Draughn, & Wozniak, 1991). Therefore, respondents from smaller facilities were overrepresented. Because 75% of homes in Ohio have fewer than 110 beds, this strategy was considered appropriate.
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The average time taken to complete the in-person pretest was 28 min. On average, Section A took 19 min and Section B took 9 min to complete. Timing for the mailed survey was not calculated because of excessive missing data on start and end times.
The first 101 respondents (composed of both in-person and mailed respondents) were selected to participate in a mailed test–retest survey, and 86 respondents or 85% of these completed the test–retest survey.
It was difficult to compare differences between nonrespondents and respondents because investigators had obtained lists of names and phone numbers from the sites but no other information. This was because facilities were cautious about providing information on the potential respondents to a research center because of the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) regulations for health care institutions regarding release of information to third parties. After obtaining the list of names, investigators mailed all potential respondents a letter explaining the study and the informed consent process.
The number of respondents participating in the pretest far exceeded the number specified in the bid to ODA. The bid had specified conducting a pretest with 75 completed in-person and mailed surveys, of which 50 were expected to be families of LT and 25 of ST residents. Further, the bid had specified that only 25 test–retest interviews would be conducted because of the time limitations. Investigators were able to conduct more interviews because the original timeline for conducting the interviews was extended by approximately 1 month (from approximately 8 to 13 weeks), and they invested their time and available resources to strengthening the pretest sample.
Background Characteristics of the Sample
Family Member's Report of Resident Characteristics
Family members reported that the resident's average age was 83 years (
) and that 21% of the residents were admitted in 2001 and 43% between 1999 and 2000. Nineteen percent defined their relative's stay as expecting to be ST, that is, up to 3 months; 36% reported that their resident was on Medicare and Medicaid, 19% on Medicaid only, 16% on Medicare, 17% on private pay, and so on. They reported that their relative's cognitive ability on average was 1.60 (
) on a scale of 0–2 (with low scores indicating greater cognitive impairment). They reported that their relative's activities of daily living (ADLs) value on average was 1.76 (
) on a scale of 0–3 (with high scores indicating greater dependency in ADLs).
The average age of the family member was 61 years (
), with 86% identifying themselves as Caucasian and 12% as African American. The majority of respondents, 61%, were female, with 31% being high school graduates and 49% having some college or a college degree. Most of the respondents (59%) were children, whereas 18% were spouses; the rest were nieces or nephews, siblings, friends, grandchildren, and others. Family members who held Power of Attorney and Power of Attorney for Health Care were 64% and 68%, respectively. Only 28% of the respondents were the resident's legal guardians. Seventy-three percent of respondents visited the resident either daily or several times per week, with 16% stating that they visited weekly.
Factor Analysis of Items on Satisfaction
A factor analysis was conducted with items in Section A of the instrument to determine whether satisfaction was a single or multidimensional construct. In the first step, items with 20% or more "missing–don't know" responses were excluded from the analysis. In this step, the skip pattern questions were also excluded (e.g., does the resident ever need help going to the bathroom). This was because 76 respondents had difficulty following the skip pattern questions and either completed questions that were not applicable or had objections to some of the skip patterns. For example, questions on laundry were skip pattern questions following an initial question on whether the facility did the laundry for the resident. However, family comments indicated that the initial question excluded those families who did the laundry because the residents' clothes had a tendency to get lost or damaged in the facility. Therefore, based on the results of the pretest, the skip pattern questions were considered problematic.
In the second step, items in which "don't know" or "missing" responses significantly differed across sites were also excluded. The rationale was to retain those items that had valid responses across sites in order to develop a generic instrument that could compare one nursing home with another. An example of an item that was excluded was "Is an appropriate clergy person available to meet resident's spiritual needs?" Results from the pretest demonstrated that primarily sites with a religious affiliation had respondents who could adequately answer this question. In contrast, questions that were more generic in nature were less problematic because respondents from a variety of sites had no difficulty in answering such questions. Therefore, the generic item on satisfaction with spiritual activities in the facility was retained because it did not have significantly different missing data between sites. In this manner (first and second steps together), a total of 27 items were excluded from the factor analysis.
In the third step, the remaining 70 (97–27) closed-ended items on satisfaction were entered into a factor analysis. With the use of pairwise deletion with principal components extraction, 16 factors emerged with eigenvalues greater than 1. After the scree plot and the cumulative percent of accounted-for variance were examined, the nine-factor solution appeared to be the best choice. Other potential solutions were also examined following rotation to see if they appeared to conceptually improve upon the nine-factor solution, but none were found. Equamax was used for rotation because, compared with varimax, this procedure more evenly spreads the variance across the factors (Gorsuch, 1983). In the rotated solution, the percent of variance each factor accounted for ranged from 4.91% to 7.85%. The total variance explained by the 9 factors was 59.44%.
Inclusionary and exclusionary criteria of.40 (except on one occasion, where it was lowered to.39) were used to retain an item in a factor. Of the 70 items that we started with, 18 did not meet these criteria and were excluded or deleted, leaving 52 items in the different domains. To these 52 items, one additional item was added in the Direct Care and Nurse Aides domains: "During the evening and night is a staff person available to help the resident if he or she needs it?" (see Table 1, Item 3 in this domain). This item was included because family comments indicated that we had asked questions regarding weekdays and weekends but not regarding evenings and nights.
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Development of Scales
With the use of the results of the factor analysis and investigator judgment, scales or domains were created (see Table 1). All domains were scored in the same direction; that is, all negatively worded items were reverse coded. Therefore, high scores on each of the domains reflect greater family satisfaction, even in areas that had negatively worded items. Two items cross-loaded at the inclusion criterion of.40 on multiple scales (see Table 1). It was clear that the factor on Administration and Professional Nurses was problematic because Item 7 in that domain (as well as Item 6 that almost approached the.40 criterion) was cross-loaded with Direct Care and Nurse Aides. Investigators made the decision to develop a separate scale for professional nurses rather than to include it with the Administration scale or include it with the Direct Care and Nurse Aide scale. This was because we believed that professional nurses fell somewhere in between the administration and the direct care staff. In the factor on Choice, the item on "Can the resident go to bed when he or she likes" was also cross-loaded with the Direct Care and Nurse Aides factor, but because it was most highly loaded on the Choice domain, it was included in the Choice scale.
Another change to the initial results from the factor analyses was to separate the Social Services domain from the Receptionist items (refer to Items 5 and 6 in the social work and communication factor in Table 1). This was done because the two domains were considered different enough to warrant the development of separate scales (one on Social Services and the other on Receptionist). In addition, the item on spiritual activities was added to the Activities domain rather than the Environment scale because of conceptual relevance. Similarly, the Noise items were included in the Environment scale. All the scales had high Cronbach's alpha coefficients (.78 and above) except for the Choice scale, which had a coefficient of.66.
The final family instrument recommended for statewide use was composed of 62 satisfaction items in 13 domains: Admissions; Social Services; Activities; Choice; Receptionist and Phone; Direct Care and Nurse Aides; Professional Nurses; Therapy; Administration; Meals and Dining; Laundry; Environment; and General Questions (refer to Table 1).
Test–Retest Reliability
To examine test–retest reliability of the scales, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were used to examine test (T1) with retest (T2) data. The analysis revealed that most of the scales had high test–retest reliability (see Table 2), except for Therapy, Receptionist, and Administration. However, because we were unsure whether these differences were related to staffing changes in these areas or whether we did not have reliable questions, we recommended retaining them in the statewide survey instrument.
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Table 3 lists the relationship of the scales with overall satisfaction in order of importance. As expected, the domains on Direct Care and Nurse Aides led the way, followed by Professional Nurses. The Choice scale had the lowest correlations with overall satisfaction. However, it was still retained in the statewide survey because of its significant correlation to overall satisfaction.
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Because there were 13 overall scales to compare the families of ST and LT residents, a Bonferroni approach was used to reduce Type I error by setting the alpha level for each individual t test to.0038 (.05 divided by 13 comparisons). The family members of the ST and LT did not differ on overall satisfaction but differed on some of the domains of satisfaction in conceptually relevant or expected directions (see Table 4). Families of LT residents were more satisfied with the admission process (ST 
vs. LT 
; 
, 
, and 
). Researchers speculated that this was likely because LT family members might have forgotten about the admission experience and in retrospect could view the admission process more positively than the more recent experiences of families of ST residents. One other difference was found for satisfaction with Laundry (ST 
vs. LT 
; 
, 
, and 
). Perhaps ST residents do not use the laundry services as much as LT residents and therefore have less reason to be dissatisfied or comment on such services. However, because only 10 ST families responded to the laundry questions, we are uncertain whether these findings are reliable. All domains in which families of ST and LT residents differed were recommended in the statewide survey to examine whether such differences would hold up with a larger sample.
Additional Changes to Instrument
Of the original 23 background characteristics in the pretest, a total of 15 items were retained and 1 was added. The following items for respondents were retained: age; relationship; race; gender; education; frequency of visits; while visiting what he or she helps resident with (feeding, dressing, toileting, etc.); and whether he or she talks to different types of staff. The following items on residents were retained: age; gender; expected length of stay in facility (to distinguish between those expected to stay more or less than 90 days); source of payment, that is, Medicare, Medicaid, and so on; cognitive status; ADL status; and where resident resided before coming to the nursing home. One item was added: "What is today's date?" It was added to measure the length of time it took a family member to respond to the survey once he or she received it in the mail and to determine the effect of the follow-up reminder postcards. These background characteristics were included because they were conceptually relevant, they had a relationship to overall satisfaction (Ejaz et al., 2002), and their inclusion did not exceed the allotted number of pages in the final instrument.
In addition, other changes were made to the format of the instrument on the basis of the pretest. For example, 49 respondents (21%) in the pretest had difficulty with following instructions to shade the bubbles in the form or used pens instead of pencils. Therefore, researchers made changes to the instructions by providing examples of incorrectly marked bubbles and recommended adding a Number 2 pencil along with the survey during statewide implementation.
Another major revision to the pretest instrument dealt with the response categories. At least 39 respondents did not like the response categories and requested frequency-type responses (e.g., always or usually). Earlier cognitive interviews with residents did not indicate a clear preference for frequency responses compared with the responses used in the pretest. Therefore, researchers returned to the piloting site and conducted further cognitive interviews with nine residents regarding different sets of response categories. Both ST and LT residents were selected by social service staff based on availability. Residents and not family members were selected because of the guiding principle to base response categories on resident preferences. On the basis of this testing, the following response categories were recommended for statewide use in both the family and resident instruments: (a) "always," (b) "sometimes," (c) "hardly ever," and (d) "never." The "don't know–not familiar with" category was retained. Investigators struggled with the decision to start the response set with "always" rather than "most of the time," even though both response categories worked well in the cognitive testing. Because most of the satisfaction literature consistently shows satisfaction results to be positively skewed (Ventura, Fox, Corley, & Mercurio, 1982), we believed starting with an absolute or most positive response would force respondents to consider situations or response categories that were not optimally satisfactory.
In summary, recommendations to exclude or include items and make changes to the instrument were based on the following key issues: (a) factor analysis and internal reliability; (b) test–retest reliability; (c) investigator judgment or conceptual relevance; (d) convergent validity of the domains with overall satisfaction; (e) ability to discriminate between families of ST and LT residents; (f) comments from respondents, including changes in the scannable form and the response categories; (g) further cognitive testing of response categories by residents; (h) the relevance of demographic factors to overall satisfaction; and (i) cost factors.
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Discussion |
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TOPAbstractDesign and MethodsResultsDiscussionReferences |
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The ODA family satisfaction instrument is different from the Ohio Health Care Association's instrument that uses single items to establish satisfaction in particular domains (such as overall satisfaction with activities) but is comparable with the multidimensional instruments on nursing home satisfaction such as the HealthRays Alliance instrument and the Benjamin Rose instrument (Cohen-Mansfield et al., 2000) in that it covers most of the domains of satisfaction relevant to long-term care (Soberman et al., 2000). The strength of the instrument lies in the establishment of its psychometric properties, its comprehensiveness, and its ability to contribute to the literature on the development of nursing home family satisfaction instruments. The multidimensional nature of the instrument makes it particularly useful to address Ohio's HB 403 mandate that the instrument provide information not only to help consumers compare and evaluate nursing homes but to also help nursing homes improve the quality of their care. Global measures of satisfaction may provide an overall indication of consumer satisfaction but often lack variability and the ability to help administrators focus on a particular aspect of their service that has to be improved. For example, a facility may compare favorably with its competitors in an overall measure of satisfaction but may have statistically significant differences in one particular domain, such as food and dining services. This area then can become the target of the facility's quality-improvement efforts.
The family survey was implemented in the 996 nursing homes in Ohio between September and December of 2001. Two thirds of these homes participated, with over 22,000 families responding for an average response rate of 45.2%. Because Ohio is one of the few states (Michigan and Vermont are a few of the others) that has developed, tested, and implemented a statewide family satisfaction survey, the work from this project can be beneficial to other researchers, states, and federal policymakers interested in nursing home consumer satisfaction. Other states such as New Jersey are in the development phase of a resident survey, and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid along with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has funded an initiative to develop instruments that capture the resident's experience of care in nursing homes. Because Ohio's survey is furthest along in scientific development, testing, and implementation, these other initiatives can build on the results described in this article. In addition, the State of Colorado has requested use of Ohio's instruments, protocols, and procedures. Therefore, the implementation of the materials and instruments by other states or initiatives will greatly enhance its generalizability and provide additional data to further refine and enhance Ohio's instruments, protocols, and procedures.
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Footnotes |
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The Margaret Blenkner Research Institute was primarily responsible for the development and testing of the family instrument, whereas the Scripps Gerontology Center was primarily responsible for the development and testing of the resident satisfaction instrument. However, both centers divided certain components of the project and worked collaboratively throughout the various stages of the project to ensure similarity in procedures and final product.
For a copy of the Ohio Department of Aging Family Satisfaction Survey, please contact the Consumer Guide Project Manager, JoEllen Walley, at JWalley{at}age.state.oh.us. Results from the statewide family survey in Ohio are available on Ohio's Long-Term Care Consumer Guide: www:ltcohio.org 
1 Margaret Blenkner Research Institute of Benjamin Rose, Cleveland, OH.
2 Scripps Gerontology Center, Miami University, Oxford, OH.
3 Department of Sociology, University of Akron, OH.
Decision Editor: Laurence G.Branch, PhD
Received for publication May 29, 2002. Accepted for publication October 10, 2002.
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