Family Inpatient Communication Survey (FICS)

More than 13 million older adults are admitted to the hospital every year in the United States. Of these, more than half will require a family member to make decisions on their behalf due to cognitive impairment. Family members report experiencing high stress and poor communication when faced with caring for a loved one with cognitive impairment. The FICS will allow providers, hospitals and healthcare systems to measure and improve upon communication with families of cognitively impaired patients.

Designed to be administered in person or by phone by a research assistant or other clinician, the FICS is intended for any clinicians or researchers who want to study inpatient communication, as well as hospitals and health care systems that want to improve quality and patient and family satisfaction measures.

The survey has been validated in a population of 360 family members of seriously ill, hospitalized older adults.

The Family Inpatient Communication Survey by Dr. Alexia Torke and Indiana University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Dr. Torke would love to hear about how your are using the FICS. Please email her and share your experiences.

Updated in 2022

The QUICK FICS has been streamlined to two brief screening surveys of 10 and 5 questions each.

Looking for the earlier version?

The original Family Inpatient Communication Survey (FICS) was comprised of 30 questions and included two dimensions of communication — information and emotional support.

The Quick FICS: 10 and 5 Item Versions of the Family Inpatient Communication Survey and the original Family Inpatient Communication Survey by Alexia Torke, MD are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.