Reliability and applicability of the Patient Enablement Instrument (PEI) in a Swedish general practice setting

BACKGROUND: The Patient Enablement Instrument (PEI), which has been used to evaluate core ingredients in primary care consultations, has been proposed as a means of moving beyond patient satisfaction evaluations. The aim of the present study was to examine the reliability and applicability of the PEI to the Swedish context. METHODS: The original PEI was translated to Swedish and included in a questionnaire that was given to consecutively scheduled patients in four primary care settings. Respondents completed identical questionnaires immediately after a consultation, as well as two days and two weeks later. The analysis focused on internal reliability, test-retest reliability and internal construct validity. RESULTS: Mean PEI scores declined significantly between baseline (3.48, SD 3.21) and the first follow-up questionnaire (3.06, SD 3.37). All three questionnaires showed high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha >0.85). Test-retest showed moderate agreement for all questions when comparing baseline and the first follow-up (kappa 0.54-0.65) and greater consistency between the two follow-up questionnaires (kappa 0.65-0.75). A large proportion of respondents characterized at least one of the questions as irrelevant (39%). CONCLUSIONS: The Swedish version of the PEI instrument has high internal consistency and moderate to good reliability. It can be used in research but is not recommended as a measure of quality of care. The instrument could benefit from further development and validity testing. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12875-015-0242-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.