Quality of care from the perspective of the cataract patient. QUOTE cataract questionnaire.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the potential of a questionnaire (QUOTE Cataract) to measure quality of care from the perspective of cataract patients in quality-assurance or improvement programs.


METHODS
Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital Maastricht, Maastricht, University Hospital Groningen, Groningen, and Rotterdam Eye Hospital, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.


METHODS
Cataract patients (N = 540) who had cataract surgery 2 to 8 months previously rated 31 quality-of-care aspects in terms of importance (range 0, not important, to 10, extremely important) and performance (0 = yes, 1 = no). An arithmetic combination of the 2 parameters was used to generate quality-impact factors (Q) (range 0, best quality of care, to 10, this aspect needs improvement according to every respondent). The goal was to identify bottlenecks in the quality of care.


RESULTS
Patients scored aspects concerning patient education as the most important quality aspects. The top 3 quality-impact factors were to inform patients what to do in emergency situations (Q = 3.39), inform patients about the risks of treatment (Q = 3.00), and minimize the number of ophthalmologists to 1 per patient (Q = 2.79).


CONCLUSIONS
The QUOTE Cataract Questionnaire effectively measured quality of care in cataract surgery patients in different hospital settings and provided practical information for quality-assurance programs.
Nijkamp
Marjan D
MD
Eye Research Institute Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands. mnij@soog.azm.nl
Sixma
Herman J
HJ
Afman
Hennie
H
Hiddema
Frans
F
Koopmans
Steven A
SA
van den Borne
Bart
B
Hendrikse
Fred
F
Nuijts
Rudy M M A
RM
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002387:Cataract Extraction; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*