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Psychometric properties of trust in trauma care in an emergency department tool

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European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

In emergency cases, lack of other treatment alternatives may affect a person’s decision, but it does not render that decision involuntary. Being able to make choices is a crucial (but not necessary) element of trust. We aimed to develop a tool to evaluate the Trust in Trauma Care in an Emergency Department (TTC-ED) among traumatic patients.

Methods

This psychometric study was carried out on 498 trauma patients who referred to the Imam Reza hospital in Tabriz, Iran, 2022. Patient-focused interviews, expert/key informants’ opinions, and literature reviews were used to generate the items. Several statistical techniques were used to evaluate the TTC-ED trust tool’s content validity, reliability, and construct validity, including the modified Kappa (k*), the Intra-Class Correlation (ICC) coefficient, and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Data were analyzed using SPSS version 26.0 and STATA 14 statistical software packages.

Results

A tool with 22 items was developed. As a measure of content validity assessment, the k* coefficient was 0.97. Regarding the evaluation of reliability, a good level of internal consistency was noted with a Cronbach’s α 0.93, and the scale’s test–retest reliability (as measured by ICC) was 0.96. The results of exploratory factor analysis indicated that the TTC-ED had a two-component tool fitted the data. Factor 1 includes 13 items covered 43.0% of the variance (eigenvalue = 9.47) and factor 2 consisted of nine items which accounted for 5.64% of the variance (eigenvalue: 1.24).

Conclusion

The Trust in TTC-ED has been shown to be a valid and reliable test for assessing patients’ trust in emergency room settings delivering trauma care. Future research may examine the validity in other contexts and create a TTC-ED instrument with a shorter version.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Road Traffic Injury Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

    Ehsan Sarbazi & Homayoun Sadeghi-Bazargani

  2. Research Centre of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

    Mostafa Farahbakhsh

  3. Emergency and Trauma Care Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran

    Alireza Ala & Hassan Soleimanpour

Authors
  1. Ehsan Sarbazi
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  2. Homayoun Sadeghi-Bazargani
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  3. Mostafa Farahbakhsh
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  4. Alireza Ala
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  5. Hassan Soleimanpour
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Contributions

HS, HSB, ES, AA, and MF contributed to conceptualization and research design; ES and HS performed interview and data collection; ES and HSB analyzed data; ES was involved in writing—original draft preparation; ES, HSB, MF, AA, and HS were involved in writing—review and editing; HS, HSB, MF, and AA performed supervision. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hassan Soleimanpour.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethical approval and consent to participate

This research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran with No. IR.TBZMED.REC.1399.1098. Informed consent was gained from all patients at the beginning of the study after explaining the purposes and approaches of the study. In addition, participants were ascertained that their information would remain confidential. All personal data were de-identified with the use of assigned codes. All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations of the Declaration of Helsinki (DoH).

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Sarbazi, E., Sadeghi-Bazargani, H., Farahbakhsh, M. et al. Psychometric properties of trust in trauma care in an emergency department tool. Eur J Trauma Emerg Surg 49, 2615–2622 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00068-023-02348-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00068-023-02348-z

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