Psychometric development and reliability analysis of a patient satisfaction with interpersonal relationship with navigator measure: a multi-site patient navigation research program study.

BACKGROUND: Patient navigation (PN) is a method for addressing racial-ethnic and socioeconomically based disparities in cancer-related care. Patient navigators provide logistic and emotional support to underserved patients to facilitate successful completion of diagnostic and treatment care. Yet, little is known about patient satisfaction with the relationship with a navigator due to a dearth of instruments measuring satisfaction.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to validate the Patient Satisfaction with Interpersonal Relationship with Navigator (PSN-I) measure for patients undergoing diagnostic and/or therapeutic cancer care.

METHODS: We administered the PSN-I to 783 participants from the nine different sites of the National Cancer Institute sponsored Patient Navigation Research Program. We evaluated the latent structure and internal consistency of the PSN-I using principal components analysis (PCA) and Cronbach coefficient alpha (α), respectively. We used correlation analyses to examine divergence and convergence of the PSN-I with the Patient Satisfaction with Cancer-related Care (PSCC), the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM) Long Form, and patients' demographics.

RESULTS: The PCA revealed a coherent set of items that explicates 76.6% of the variance in PSN-I. Reliability assessment revealed high internal consistency (α ranging from 0.95 to 0.96). The PSN-I had good face validity as well as convergent and divergent validities as indicated by moderate correlations with score on the PSCC (all ps < 0.0001) and non-significant correlations with primary language, marital status, and scores on the REALM Long Form (all ps > 0.05).

CONCLUSION: The PSN-I is a valid and suitable measure of satisfaction with a patient navigator for the present sample.