Assessing Patient-Centered Engagement: Provider–Patient Interaction (PPI), Trust, and Cultural Sensitivity Scales

Introduction:
Patient-centered care relies on effective provider–patient engagement, including high-quality interaction, trust, and culturally sensitive communication. Reliable measurement tools in these domains are essential for understanding how providers approach social needs such as social isolation (SI). This study examines the reliability and item performance of three brief engagement-focused scales—Provider–Patient Interaction (PPI), Trust in Patients, and Cultural Sensitivity (CS)—and explores their associations with providers’ communication and comfort with SI screening.

Methods:
Healthcare providers who care for older adults (n = 59) completed the PPI (16 items), Trust (6 items), and CS (5 items) scales, along with measures of communication about SI and comfort with SI screening. Analyses included internal consistency reliability, descriptive item statistics, and corrected item–total correlations. Preliminary construct validity was explored through correlations between each scale and conceptually related indicators (communication about SI and comfort screening SI).

Results:
All three scales demonstrated strong internal consistency: PPI α = .987, Trust α = .906, and CS α = .832. PPI items showed high means (4.31–4.59) and strong item–total correlations (.781–.936). Trust items had moderate means (2.92–3.59) with acceptable item–total correlations (.596–.814). CS scores were high (3.95–4.56) with adequate item performance (.408–.834). Preliminary validity testing indicated that PPI correlated strongly with CS (r = .858, p < .001) and moderately with SI screening comfort (r = .391, p = .007). Communication about SI also correlated with screening comfort (r = .314, p = .026). Trust was not significantly associated with comfort.

Conclusions:
The PPI, Trust, and CS scales demonstrated strong reliability and promising preliminary construct validity among healthcare providers. These brief, practical measures can support the assessment of key engagement domains and inform strategies to optimize patient-centered care pathways, including social isolation screening.