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ABSTRACT: Objectives
To develop and evaluate the validity of a scale to assess patients' perceived benefits and risks of reading ambulatory visit notes online (open notes).Design
Four studies were used to evaluate the construct validity of a benefits and risks scale. Study 1 refined the items; study 2 evaluated underlying factor structure and identified the items; study 3 evaluated study 2 results in a separate sample; and study 4 examined factorial invariance of the developed scale across educational subsamples.Setting
Ambulatory care in three large health systems in the USA.Participants
Participants in three US health systems who responded to one of two online surveys asking about benefits and risks of reading visit notes: a psychometrics survey of primary care patients, and a large general survey of patients across all ambulatory specialties. Sample sizes: n=439 (study 1); n=439 (study 2); n=500 (study 3); and n=250 (study 4).Primary and secondary outcome measures
Questionnaire items about patients' perceived benefits and risks of reading online visit notes.Results
Study 1 resulted in the selection of a 10-point importance response option format over a 4-point agreement scale. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in study 2 resulted in two-factor solution: a four-item benefits factor with good reliability (alpha=0.83) and a three-item risks factor with poor reliability (alpha=0.52). The factor structure was confirmed in study 3, and confirmatory factor analysis of benefit items resulted in an excellent fitting model, X2(2)=2.949; confirmatory factor index=0.998; root mean square error of approximation=0.04 (0.00, 0.142); loadings 0.68-0.86; alpha=0.88. Study 4 supported configural, measurement and structural invariance for the benefits scale across high and low-education patient groups.Conclusions
The findings suggest that the four-item benefits scale has excellent construct validity and preliminary evidence of generalising across different patient populations. Further scale development is needed to understand perceived risks of reading open notes.
SUBMITTER: Wright JA
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7577023 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
BMJ open 20201020 10
<h4>Objectives</h4>To develop and evaluate the validity of a scale to assess patients' perceived benefits and risks of reading ambulatory visit notes online (open notes).<h4>Design</h4>Four studies were used to evaluate the construct validity of a benefits and risks scale. Study 1 refined the items; study 2 evaluated underlying factor structure and identified the items; study 3 evaluated study 2 results in a separate sample; and study 4 examined factorial invariance of the developed scale across ...[more]