Validation of the patient advocacy engagement scale for health professionals.

Codes of ethics of nursing, social work, and medicine, as well as Joint Commission Accreditation Standards, require members of these professions to engage in advocacy on behalf of patients. With use of expert panels, seven categories of patient problems in the healthcare milieu were identified: ethical rights, quality care, preventive care, culturally competent care, affordable/accessible care, mental health care, and care linked to patients' homes and communities. To measure the frequency with which healthcare professionals engage in patient advocacy related to these specific problems, the Patient Advocacy Engagement Scale (Patient-AES) scale was developed and validated through analysis of responses of 297 professionals (94 social workers, 97 nurses, and 104 medical residents) recruited from the personnel rosters of eight acute-care hospitals in Los Angeles County.