Dealing with intervening factors in the patient engagement

Abstract

PurposeThere is evidence that quality improvement projects developed with the participation of patients and family members are more likely to result in a sustainable change. To identify the intervening factors is an important step in promoting and supporting patient and family members’ engagement.Design/methodology/approachA survey was carried out with 90 hospitals. A total of 35 intervening factors were evaluated by the healthcare professionals from the quality area using a Likert scale. Factor analysis was applied to identify the relationship among the factors and cluster analysis and the standardized scores for each new latent variable were obtained to observe the association between them and hospitals profile. Cluster analysis allowed to group the hospitals with similar responses and to analyze whether there was any association with the profile of the institutions.FindingsA total of ten intervening factors are identified: two in the financial dimension, five in the structural and three in the personal and cultural. The standardized scores of latent variables suggest that the financial factors could be affected by the hospital capacity. The structural factors could be impacted by the accreditation status, location (region) and administrative control (ownership). And the personal and cultural factors could be by the location and dominant organizational culture. All of factors are influenced by the performed quality management activities. The cluster analysis allowed the identification of three groups in the financial dimension, and four in the other two dimensions. Except for the accreditation status in the personal and cultural dimension, no evidence of association between the groups and the variables raised to characterize the profile of the hospitals was found.Originality/valueThe study contributed to identify the relationship among the intervening factors turning possible to simplify and reduce them more comprehensively than those originally identified in the literature and at the same time maintaining the representativeness of the original variables.