title: The development of a patient satisfaction questionnaire in the ambulatory setting.
abstract: Patient satisfaction is of critical interest to medical care providers. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a patient satisfaction questionnaire. A preliminary 80-item questionnaire was created, and a random sample of 268 family practice patients participated. Subjects rated items on a 4-point Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree). Items were subjected to a principal components varimax rotated factor analysis and five factors (60 items) were extracted, accounting for 47.5% of the variance. These factors were: satisfaction with physician, dissatisfaction with practice management, physician availability, receptionist behavior, and wait time. Alpha reliability coefficients for factors 1-5 were: .96, .93, .89, .84, and .78, respectively. All items correlated highly with total scores on the respective factors. Factor intercorrelations were all significant (P less than .001) and in the expected direction. Patients with a higher level of education were significantly less satisfied about physician availability than patients without a high school education (P less than .05). Implications of the findings are discussed.
authors.affiliation: West Jersey Family Practice Residency, Voorhees, NJ.
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: DiTomasso
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Willard
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000592:standards*; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D004522:Educational Status; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005194:Family Practice / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009515:New Jersey; D012494:Sampling Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires