LAUSR

Abstract Objective To translate and assess the validity and reliability of the original American Care Transitions Measure, both the 15-item and the shortened 3-item versions, in a sample of people in transition from hospital to home within Sweden. Design Translation of survey items, evaluation of psychometric properties. Setting Ten surgical and medical wards at five hospitals in Sweden. Participants Patients discharged from surgical and medical wards. Main outcome measure Psychometric properties of the Swedish versions of the 15-item (CTM-15) and the 3-item (CTM-3) Care Transition Measure. Results We compared the fit of nine models among a sample of 194 Swedish patients. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.946 for CTM-15 and 0.74 for CTM-3. The model indices for CTM-15 and CTM-3 were strongly indicative of inferior goodness-of-fit between the hypothesized one-factor model and the sample data. A multidimensional three-factor model revealed a better fit compared with CTM-15 and CTM-3 one factor models. The one-factor solution, representing 4 items (CTM-4), showed an acceptable fit of the data, and was far superior to the one-factor CTM-15 and CTM-3 and the three-factor multidimensional models. The Cronbach’s alpha for CTM-4 was 0.85. Conclusions CTM-15 with multidimensional three-factor model was a better model than both CTM-15 and CTM-3 one-factor models. CTM-4 is a valid and reliable measure of care transfer among patients in medical and surgical wards in Sweden. It seems the Swedish CTM is best represented by the short Swedish version (CTM-4) unidimensional construct.