Abstract
BACKGROUND: Among older people in the world, older patients' communication has become a public health issue of vital importance. Such communication could be improved by different interventions. However, a means of measuring patient's communication confidence in these measures has not been established in China. This study is aimed at translating and introducing the Patient's Communication Self-Efficacy Scale for communication between doctors and patients after total hip replacement. METHOD: (1) A questionnaire was completed after a consultation by 167 patients (mean age = 70.04 years; SD: 6.3 years; females/males: 94/73). Translation of the original English version PCSS into the Chinese; (2) Validation of the final Chinese version of the PCSS. Measurement indexes included item generation, reliability testing, construct validity and test-retest reliability. To actualize the above test, we used SPSS 19.0 software and LISREL 8.7. We build the Bayesian Network Model of the Chinese version of the PCSS and determined predictive variables. RESULT: Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the Chinese version of the PCSS has fit a three-dimensional model. Meanwhile, the Chinese version of the PCSS has high internal consistency (Cronbach's α coefficient 0.929) and test-retest reliability (Kappa coefficient 0.761). Analysis using Bayesian networks shows that the important predictors are education (0.4207), PEPPI 3(0.3951), and PCSS 1(0.1139). The connections between PCSS 3 and other variables do not indicate causality, conditional dependencies or inter-relatedness. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to validate the Chinese version of the PCSS in outpatients after total hip replacement. Our results confirmed that the Chinese version of the scale has high internal consistency, construct validity and test-retest reliability. And the patient-doctor interaction and education are important predictors of patient's communication self-efficacy.