Preliminary validation of a scale to measure patient perceived similarity to their navigator

OBJECTIVE: A central premise in deployment of community health workers (CHW) is that CHWs share key characteristics with their patients. We sought to develop a scale to measure this construct called the Perceived Navigator Similarity (PNS) questionnaire. METHODS: We adopted items from a similarly developed scale, patient perceived similarity to their physicians, and examined its psychometric properties among 51 patients who were navigated for cancer care by a CHW. RESULTS: Principal component analysis revealed two main factors: personal and ethnic. The scale was associated with greater satisfaction with navigation (p < 0.005) and cancer care (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The PNS shows promise for further validation in larger samples assessing navigator-patient similarity from the patient perspective. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-015-1341-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.