Permission to use the scales for research or clinical practice is granted by the author (Dr. Marianne Weiss). Modification of the scales is NOT permitted. (See Permission to Use statement for more information.) Links to approved translations are provided. Please contact the translator for permission to use the translation. Cite Dr. Marianne Weiss as author of the scale and also cite the translator in any publications. For more information about the Readiness for Discharge Scales, go to the College of Nursing website.

The QUALITY OF DISCHARGE TEACHING SCALE (QDTS) is a patient self-report tool that measures the patient’s perception of the quality of discharge teaching provided by nurses over the course of hospitalization in preparation for discharge. The QDTS measures the receiver characteristics (patient perspective) of the nursing care process of discharge teaching. Note that the scale asks patients to reflect on the teaching the received from their nurses over the course of hospitalization, based on an underlying assumption that discharge teaching occurs throughout the hospitalization. It was not intended to measure teaching by one specific nurse, but rather whether the patient received an adequate amount of content from nurses and whether the nurses exhibited high quality discharge teaching skills. The QDTS is administered on the day of discharge, normally within 4 hours prior to discharge.

• Content (measuring the amount of content received)
  • The content scale includes parallel questions on content received and content needed (only the received score is included in the scale calculations though subscale analysis for differences in content needed and received can be calculated).
  • 6 parallel questions (needed and received) in the Adult Medical-Surgical and Parent forms and 7 parallel questions in the Postpartum Mother (OB) form.
• Delivery (the skills of nurses in delivering the discharge teaching).
  • 13 items
  • Note: prior versions of the scale had 12 items. In a revision in 2018, one item was added to the Delivery Subscale (Item 12 [item 13 in OB form] was added. Items match the content of our theoretical framework to guide patient/family teaching which is accessible online: L., Piacentine, L., Bobay, K., & Weiss, M.E. (2018). Teaching students to teach patients: A theory-guided approach. Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, 8(11). 92-101. URL: https://doi.org/10.5430/jnep.v8n11p92
• A short form that includes the same items on the content received scale and a reduced number of items (4 items) from the delivery subscale is also available. This form has undergone limited testing with Adult Medical-Surgical patients only. Our research findings with using the QDTS indicate that the quality of ‘delivery’ of teaching is a stronger predictor of patient outcomes than the content itself. The 4 ‘delivery’ items may serve as a signal of quality of teaching ‘delivery’ but does not fully assess the 13 critical elements we have identified – see article above.

Scoring

The content and delivery subscales scores are calculated separately. We no longer recommend a total score (previously the sum of content received and delivery) as these scales performed differently (they had different predictive relationships) in several studies of discharge outcomes.

Content received and delivery subscales scores are calculated as the mean of item scores (sum items and divide by number of items). We use mean of items to increase interpretability of findings. Content needed can be calculated in a similar way.

Links to forms are directly below. Permission to use the scales for research or clinical practice is granted by the author (Dr. Weiss). Modification of the scales is NOT permitted.