Validation and application of an instrument for measuring patient relatives' perception of quality of geriatric care.
OBJECTIVE
To test and validate a questionnaire concerning patient relatives' perception of the quality of geriatric care.


METHODS
Three anonymous questionnaire studies.


METHODS
A community-based geriatric care organization and a university hospital in Sweden.


METHODS
Three hundred and eighteen relatives of patients within the geriatric care organization and 38 relatives of patients at the university hospital.


METHODS
A questionnaire composed of eight quality of care indices and an overall quality rating. Reliability and validity estimates were compared between the results from the three surveys.


RESULTS
Internal reliability estimates for all indices were >0.65 and consistent over time. Inter-index correlations were >0.60 between certain indices, indicating some overlap. Second order factor analysis resulted in three distinct index groupings: personnel, relative's role, and care content. These three dimensions summarize relatives' perceptions of the quality of geriatric care.


CONCLUSIONS
There is a need for a confidential patient relatives' questionnaire in geriatric care. The results revealed good questionnaire reliability and validity. The questionnaire needs to be tested in larger, independent samples in order to validate the indices further.
Verho
Henna
H
Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. henna.verho@pubcare.uu.se
Arnetz
Judith E
JE
D000368:Aged; D003153:Community Health Services / Q000592:standards; D003258:Consumer Behavior / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000592:standards*; D006302:Health Services Research; D006299:Health Services for the Aged / Q000592:standards*; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden