Measuring How Active Patients Are: The Italian PAM13-I

You've probably heard about the Patient Activation Measure (PAM), a popular tool used globally to gauge how involved patients are in their healthcare. A recent study in Italy focused on the Italian version of the PAM, known as PAM13-I, to see how well it works among patients undergoing elective surgery, specifically laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The study was conducted across 111 surgical units, involving 4532 patients. They looked at the questionnaire's reliability and validity using Rasch analysis. Good news: the Italian PAM13-I proved to be quite reliable, with excellent internal consistency. However, there were some downsides. For instance, the questionnaire had a "ceiling effect, " meaning many patients scored at the highest level, which could mask differences among highly active patients. Plus, there were issues with item targeting and local response dependency. In short, while the Italian PAM13-I shows promise, it needs some tweaks to better fit surgical populations. It's a work in progress, but the results are encouraging for future use.