Assessing the extent of shared decision making in Pediatrics: Preliminary psychometric evaluation of the German CollaboRATE scales for patients aged 7-18 years, parents and parent-proxy reports.

OBJECTIVE

To conduct a preliminary evaluation of psychometric properties of CollaboRATE, a set of three scales to assess shared decision making (SDM) with pediatric patients, parents and parents on behalf of their children (parent-proxy reports). As secondary objectives we examined the scales' distributional characteristics, acceptability, and agreement between scales.

METHODS

Patients aged ≥ 7 years and parents were recruited in two outpatient facilities providing healthcare services for children with neurological and behavioral health conditions. We collected 46, 169 and 227 pediatric patient, parent-proxy and parent reports, respectively. Convergent, divergent and discriminative validity were investigated. Acceptability of the scales and agreement between patient and parent-proxy reports were explored by assessing item nonresponse and Bland-Altman plots.

RESULTS

While convergent and divergent validity were established for the parent scale, discriminative validity was not demonstrated for any of the scales. The scales showed good to excellent acceptability. Parent-proxy reports agreed to a moderate extent with patients' self-reports of SDM.

CONCLUSION

CollaboRATE offers a starting point for parsimoniously assessing SDM in Pediatrics, however further psychometric testing is warranted.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Given limited psychometric support for the pediatric patient scale, we recommend using both the pediatric patient and parent-proxy report scales to assess SDM in pediatric patients until further psychometric testing is concluded.