Behaviors in Advance Care Planning and ACtions Survey (BACPACS): development and validation part 1

BACKGROUND: Although advance care planning (ACP) is fairly well understood, significant barriers to patient participation remain. As a result, tools to assess patient behaviour are required. The objective of this study was to improve the measurement of patient engagement in ACP by detecting existing survey design issues and establishing content and response process validity for a new survey entitled Behaviours in Advance Care Planning and ACtions Survey (BACPACS). METHODS: We based our new tool on that of an existing ACP engagement survey. Initial item reduction was carried out using behavior change theories by content and design experts to help reduce response burden and clarify questions. Thirty-two patients with chronic diseases (cancer, heart failure or renal failure) were recruited for the think aloud cognitive interviewing with the new, shortened survey evaluating patient engagement with ACP. Of these, n = 27 had data eligible for analysis (n = 8 in round 1 and n = 19 in rounds 2 and 3). Interviews were audio-recorded and analyzed using the constant comparison method. Three reviewers independently listened to the interviews, summarized findings and discussed discrepancies until consensus was achieved. RESULTS: Item reduction from key content expert review and conversation analysis helped decrease number of items from 116 in the original ACP Engagement Survey to 24–38 in the new BACPACS depending on branching of responses. For the think aloud study, three rounds of interviews were needed until saturation for patient clarity was achieved. The understanding of ACP as a construct, survey response options, instructions and terminology pertaining to patient engagement in ACP warranted further clarification. CONCLUSIONS: Conversation analysis, content expert review and think aloud cognitive interviewing were useful in refining the new survey instrument entitled BACPACS. We found evidence for both content and response process validity for this new tool. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12904-017-0236-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.