Table 2.

Evaluation of 30 Report Items from the CAHPS 3-State Pilot Hospital Survey

Abbreviated Item Content*	Item–Total Correlations†	Overall Hospital Rating‡	Less Important to Patients§
Nurse Communication
5	listen carefully	0.79	0.36
4	respect	0.74	0.50
7	enough time	0.72	0.15	√
6	explain	0.71	0.13
9	help soon	0.66	0.14
Doctor Communication
12	listen carefully	0.81	0.13
13	explain	0.74	−0.02*
11	respect	0.76	0.23	√
14	enough time	0.73	−0.00 NS	√
25	involve you	0.54	0.06	√
Physical Comfort
20	help bathing	0.64	0.04	√
22	help bathroom	0.64	0.05
24	privacy	0.56	0.06	√
27	help visitors	0.56∥	0.25
17	room clean	0.55	0.27
18	quiet at night	0.46	0.10	√
16	temperature	0.43	0.11	√
Pain Control
33	everything to help	0.74	0.17
32	pain well controlled	0.71	0.06
31	respond quickly	0.70	0.06	√
35	pain with tests	0.36¶	0.00NS	√
Medicine Communication
38	what medicine was for	0.71	−0.01NS
37	name of the medicine?	0.68	−0.00NS	√
39	taking any other medicines	0.67	0.01NS	√
41	possible side-effects	0.65	0.02*	√
40	allergic to medicines	0.63	0.04	√
Discharge Information
49	problems to look for	0.56	0.12
47	information about activities	0.54	0.07**
48	help needed	0.40	0.14	√
51	how to take this medicine	0.38	0.08	√

^*Numbers before the content are the question numbers associated with that item on the original survey. Weaker items are italicized.

^†Pearson product–moment correlations between the item and the total score corrected for overlap.

^‡Item parameter estimates are for a model regressing the global hospital rating on the 30 remaining report items. Probability values for parameters are <0.0001 unless otherwise noted: ^NSNonsignificant, >.05; *p <.05 **p <.001.

^§This is according to focus groups research with patients and loved ones detailed in Sofaer et al. (2005) and summarized in this report.

^∥This item correlates 0.57 with the Nurse Communication composite.

^¶This item also correlated 0.36 with the Physical Comfort composite.