INTRODUCTION: Academic Detailing (AD) is an educational outreach strategy that builds upon trust and evidence-based medicine to enhance patient care. Although prescriber satisfaction is often assessed in AD programs, typically single-items or non-validated measures are used.

OBJECTIVES: To develop a brief measure of prescriber satisfaction with AD visits, called the Provider’s Academic detailing Satisfaction Survey (PASS), and report preliminary evidence of validity and reliability.

METHODS: A literature review was conducted, and expert panel consulted, to generate candidate items. After formatting the measure, it was piloted and item wording refined. The measure was administered to primary care providers in a two-visit AD study focused on opioid prescribing and appropriate pain management strategies. Psychometric performance of the measure was examined, including factor structure, internal consistency reliability, item fit and informativity using item-response theory (IRT)-based models.

RESULTS: Items were developed (n=8) around themes of acceptability, feasibility, usefulness, perception of efficacy, overall satisfaction with the visit, willingness to repeat the experience. Upon expert panel consultation, two items related to prescriber willingness to change were added. Psychometric analysis was conducted on 183 completed surveys by providers, of whom 157 participated in the second visit. Item-level descriptive statistics suggested the presence of ceiling-effects. The exploratory factor analysis identified a single factor solution. The ten-item scale demonstrated a high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha above 0.9 in both visits), which improved after one item related to willingness to change was dropped. IRT analysis showed that this same item does not contribute unique information to the scale. Results were consistent between the two visits.

CONCLUSIONS: The proposed 9-item version of the PASS demonstrates evidence of validity and reliability with stable properties across visits. Further evidence of validity and generalizability by examining measurement properties of the PASS in various AD programs is encouraged.