A telephone survey to measure communication, education, self-management, and health status for patients with heart failure: the Improving Chronic Illness Care Evaluation (ICICE).

BACKGROUND: Many aspects of quality of care for heart failure cannot be reliably obtained by chart review.

METHODS AND RESULTS: We created and tested a telephone survey to measure provider-patient communication; satisfaction; patient education, knowledge, and self-management; and health status for the Improving Chronic Illness Care Evaluation. A total of 781 patients participated in the survey; 62% were age 65 or older, 66% had a history of coronary artery disease, and 59% were cared for by a cardiologist. The measures of communication, satisfaction, patient education, knowledge, and self-management performed very well with low rates of missing values and good psychometric properties. The self-efficacy scale had acceptable reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.69); however, it was weakly correlated with objective measures of knowledge about self-management. The Heart Failure Symptom Scale (HFSS) showed high reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.88) and good correlation with the SF-12 Physical Health Summary Scale (r=0.63); the HFSS was also moderately correlated with measures of mental health.

CONCLUSIONS: Reliable information about processes of care and health outcomes that cannot be reliably assessed by chart can be obtained by telephone. This tool should be useful for measuring quality of care for large patient populations and determining the effectiveness of quality improvement activities.