Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Apr 19:8:100333.
doi: 10.1016/j.ijnsa.2025.100333. eCollection 2025 Jun.

Assessments of unmet communication needs and quality of staff-family communication at geriatric facilities: Instruments development and psychometric testing

Rinat Cohen  1 , Gal Maydan  2 , Shai Brill  1   3 , Jiska Cohen-Mansfield  1   4
Affiliations

Assessments of unmet communication needs and quality of staff-family communication at geriatric facilities: Instruments development and psychometric testing

Rinat Cohen et al. Int J Nurs Stud Adv. .

Abstract

Background: Despite an acknowledged need to improve communication between staff and family caregivers of non-communicative care recipients (i.e., care recipients who are unable to engage in discussions with the medical staff about their treatment and care at geriatric facilities), no tools exist to measure the quality of this communication nor the extent to which family caregivers' communication needs are met.

Objective: To develop and test two assessment tools to evaluate the extent to which family caregivers' communication needs are met according to family caregivers and for evaluating the quality of communication with the staff member most often consulted.

Design: Instrument development, including reliability, validity, and construct testing.

Settings: Five geriatric facilities (two geriatric medical centers and three nursing homes) in Israel.

Participants: 128 family caregivers of non-communicative care recipients at geriatric facilities.

Methods: Based on our previous findings, we developed the Family Caregiver's Communication Needs Questionnaire, which assesses the extent to which family caregivers' communication needs are met according to them, and the Staff-Family Quality of Communication Questionnaire, which evaluates the quality of communication with the staff member most often consulted. We conducted personal interviews with the participants to explore both tools' items and reliability and examined the reliability and convergent validity of the Family Caregiver's Communication Needs Questionnaire in a different sub-sample. The Family Caregiver's Communication Needs Questionnaire's construct was tested using a factor analysis.

Results: Both tools' internal consistency reliabilities were high (Family Caregiver's Communication Needs Questionnaire, Cronbach's α = 0.92, 23 items; Staff-Family Quality of Communication Questionnaire, α = 0.86, 8 items). Exploratory factor analysis for the Family Caregiver's Communication Needs Questionnaire reinforced the four factors that emerged in a prior study (staff's availability and attitude, relating to family caregivers' caregiving experience, clarity and reliability of information, and language barriers), accounting together for 63.3 % of the variance. Both tools demonstrated good convergent validity.

Conclusions: The Family Caregiver's Communication Needs Questionnaire and Staff-Family Quality of Communication Questionnaire are valid and reliable tools for assessing the quality of staff-family communication, assisting in identifying communication strengths and weaknesses, suggesting potential interventions for improved communication, and providing outcome measures for such interventions.

Keywords: Caregiving; Geriatric facilities; Non-communicative care recipients; Scale development; Staff-family communication.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

None.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig. 1
Enrollment of Study Participants for Questionnaires Development.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Barken R., Lowndes R. Supporting family involvement in long-term residential care: promising practices for relational care. Qual. Health Res. 2018;28(1):60–72. - PubMed
    1. Bauer M., Fetherstonhaugh D., Lewis V. Attitudes towards family-staff relationships in Australian residential aged care settings: development and psychometric evaluation of the 'Family and Staff Relationship Attitude Tool' (FASRAT) Aust. J. Ageing. 2014;33(3):170–173. - PubMed
    1. Benson J., Clark F. A guide for instrument development and validation. Am. J. Occupat. Therapy. 1982;36(12):789–800. - PubMed
    1. Bidwell J.T., Lyons K.S., Mudd J.O., Gelow J.M., Chien C.V., Hiatt S.O., Grady K.L., Lee C.S. Quality of life, depression, and anxiety in Ventricular Assist device therapy: longitudinal outcomes for patients and Family caregivers. J. Cardiovasc. Nurs. 2017;32(5):455–463. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Biola H., Sloane P.D., Williams C.S., Daaleman T.P., Williams S.W., Zimmerman S. Physician communication with family caregivers of long-term care residents at the end of life. J. Am. Geriatr. Soc. 2007;55(6):846–856. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources