Development and validation of a social vulnerabilities survey for medical inpatients

OBJECTIVES: Our objective was to validate a Social Vulnerabilities Survey that was developed to identify patient barriers in the following domains: (1) salience or priority of health; (2) social support; (3) transportation; and (4) finances. DESIGN: Cross-sectional psychometric study. Questions for one domain (health salience) were developed de novo while questions for the other domains were derived from national surveys and/or previously validated questionnaires. We tested construct (ie, convergent and discriminative) validity for these new questions through hypothesis testing of correlations between question responses and patient characteristics. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine structural validity of the survey as a whole. SETTING: Patients admitted to the inpatient internal medicine service at a tertiary care hospital in Calgary, Canada. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 406 patients were included in the study. RESULTS: The mean age of respondents was 55.5 (SD 18.6) years, with the majority being men (55.4%). In feasibility testing of the first 107 patients, the Social Vulnerabilities Survey was felt to be acceptable, comprehensive and met face validity. Hypothesis testing of the health salience questions revealed that the majority of observed correlations were exactly as predicted. Exploratory factor analysis of the global survey revealed the presence of five factors (eigenvalue >1): social support, health salience, drug insurance, transportation barriers and drug costs. All but four questions loaded to these five factors. CONCLUSIONS: The Social Vulnerabilities Survey has face, construct and structural validity. It can be used to measure modifiable social vulnerabilities, such that their effects on health outcomes can be explored and understood.