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Introduction: Patient's experience of care (PEC) is crucial in enhancing and sustaining healthcare quality.

Research question: the primary aim of this study is to establish and assess a new questionnaire index designed to measure PEC following elective spinal surgery. This index serves as a tool to document, enhance, and maintain the quality of healthcare provided in this context.

Material and methods: The studied PEC index comprises 7 questions, each addressing different aspects of perioperative care. Our study involved 300 post-spinal surgery patients, sourced from the Swedish national register for spine surgery. Collected data included age, gender, education level, self-rated health, and primary language. The patients were contacted via telephone by trained interviewers, approximately 35 days after their surgery (with 60 patients re-interviewed after a few weeks). We employed linear regression, t-test, and ANOVA models to examine the associations between the PEC index and the documented variables.

Results: The PEC index demonstrated good internal consistency and reliability (Cronbach alpha = 0.76, interclass correlation coefficient = 0.87). Additionally, the utility measures indicated associations between the PEC index and factors such as higher age (p = 0.014), male gender (p = 0.012), and better self-rated health (p = 0.011).

Discussion and conclusion: The PEC index seems to be a promising tool with a clinically useful composite questionnaire for assessing PEC in patients undergoing elective spine surgery. In clinical settings, the index can accompany other outcome scores to evaluate and compare different diagnoses and management methods.