The French adaptation and validation of the Partners in Health (PIH) scale among patients with chronic conditions seen in primary care

Objective Measuring self-management helps identify the degree of participation of people in the management of their chronic conditions and guides clinicians in determining person-centred priorities for providing support. The Partners in Health scale, a self-report generic questionnaire, was developed to capture the self-management of patients with chronic conditions. This study aimed to translate the Partners in Health scale into French and to examine its psychometric properties in French-speaking people with chronic conditions followed in primary care.

Methods The Partners in Health scale was translated into French using Hawkins and Osborne’s method (2012). Content validity was evaluated through cognitive interviews (Think Aloud Method). Internal consistency was measured at baseline with Cronbach’s alpha. Test-retest reliability was evaluated at baseline and two weeks later using the intraclass correlation coefficient. Concurrent validity was measured at baseline with the Self-efficacy for Managing Chronic Disease (SEM-CD) and the Patient Activation Measure (PAM), using Spearman correlations.

Results Cognitive interviews were conducted with 10 participants. During these interviews, most items were clearly understood and accepted as formulated; only a few terms were modified. To evaluate the psychometric properties of the French-language version of the Partners in Health scale, 168 participants (male = 34.5%; mean age = 58 years; mean number of chronic conditions = 4.1) completed the questionnaire at baseline and 47 of them completed the questionnaire two weeks later by telephone. Cronbach’s alpha for internal consistency was 0.85 (95% confidence interval: 0.81–0.88). The intraclass correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability was 0.77 (95% confidence interval: 0.58–0.87). Concurrent validity with spearman’s coefficient correlation of Self-efficacy for Managing Chronic Disease and Patient Activation Measure was 0.68 and 0.61 respectively.

Conclusion The French-language version of the Partners in Health scale is a reliable and valid questionnaire for the measure of self-management in persons with chronic conditions seen in primary care.