Table 5.

Items Making Discriminations That Are Too Subtle for Many Respondents

Original Wording	Revised Wording	Reason for Change
1. We want to know your rating of all the health care you received while you were in the hospital. Use any number from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst health care possible and 10 is the best health care possible. How would you rate all the health care you received while you were in the hospital?	Item deleted	Many respondents felt that this item was identical with item 3 (below)
2. In general, how would you rate all of the health care you received while you were in the hospital?” (Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good, Excellent, Perfect)	Item deleted	Many respondents would not say “perfect,” decreasing the item's psychometric value
3. Using any number from 0 to 10, where 0 is the worst hospital possible and 10 is the best hospital possible, what number would you use to rate this hospital overall?	The following was added before the item: Please answer the following questions about the stay at the hospital shown on the cover. Do not include any other hospital stays in your answer	Some respondents would answer about all of their stays at the hospital