This article presents an instrument used to measure resident satisfaction in a transitional care unit (TCU) and examines the role of potential confounding factors in assessing satisfaction. The confounding factors examined are perceived physical health status, cognitive status, pain, length of stay, and age. Satisfaction data were self-reported by TCU residents during 1998 and 1999. Self-reported questions of general physical health and pain taken from the Short Form 36 Health Survey were used along with an audit of medical records to identify the residents’cognitive status, age, and length of stay. The instrument is first shown to be psychometrically sound. Second, with careful surveying techniques, it is shown that response rates can be very high. Third, it is shown that some of the confounders examined have practical significance when interpreting satisfaction information. Several of these variables were significantly associated with both overall satisfaction and individual dimensions of satisfaction within the survey.
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