Critical Synthesis Package: Decision Regret Scale

Abstract

Abstract This Critical Synthesis Package contains: (1) a Critical Analysis of the psychometric properties and the application to health science education of the Decision Regret Scale, and (2) copies of the Decision Regret Scale in four languages (Chinese, English, French, Spanish), and the User's Manual developed by Annette O'Connor PhD. The Decision Regret Scale is a 5-item Likert-type measure written to assess regret or remorse following a medical decision. Patients respond to the items after reading the prompt: “Please think about the decision you made about [chosen health care decision] after talking to your [doctor, surgeon, nurse, health professional, etc.].” High scores suggest high regret over a health care decision. Scores may be transformed to a scale of 0 (no regret) to 100 (high regret). The scale is simple to administer, can be administered via paper-and-pencil or computer-based modalities, and typically takes less than 1 minute to complete. Internal consistency estimates have been strong. Scores from the Decision Regret Scale correlated with scores from measures of decision conflict, satisfaction with information and doctor visits, physical and psychological health outcomes, and overall quality of life. Decision Regret Scale scores discriminated between patients with positive and negative feelings about their decision and between those who had or had not changed their original decision. However, to date there are no reported investigations of the dimensionality of scores from the scale. Further, only three applied studies reported reliability estimates for their samples. Overall, the Decision Regret Scale appears to be a sensitive tool for examining regret associated with medical decisions.

Keywords

• Validity
• DREAM
• Directory and Repository of Educational Assessment Measures
• Decision Regret
• Psychometric