A preliminary study of Patient Dignity Inventory validation among patients hospitalized in an acute psychiatric ward

摘要

Purpose: To investigate the perception of dignity among patients hospitalized in a psychiatric setting using the Patient Dignity Inventory (PDI), which had been first validated in oncologic field among terminally ill patients. Patients and methods: After having modified two items, we administered the Italian version of PDI to all patients hospitalized in a public psychiatric ward (Service of Psychiatric Diagnosis and Treatment of a northern Italian town), who provided their consent and completed it at discharge, from October 21, 2015 to May 31, 2016. We excluded minors and patients with moderate/severe dementia, with poor knowledge of Italian language, who completed PDI in previous hospitalizations and/or were hospitalized for 1 (Kaiser’s criterion), which explained?>80% of total variance with good internal consistency: 1) “Loss of self-identity and social role”, 2)?“Anxiety and uncertainty for future” and 3) “Loss of personal autonomy”. The PDI and the three-factor scores were statistically significantly positively correlated with the Hamilton Scales for Depression and Anxiety but not with other scale scores. Conclusion: Our preliminary research suggests that PDI can be a reliable tool to assess patients’ dignity perception in a psychiatric setting, until now little investigated, helping professionals to improve quality of care and patients to accept treatments.