[A validated questionnaire for measuring patient satisfaction in general and specialist ambulatory medical care: the Qualiskope-A].
OBJECTIVE
To develop a reliable and valid questionnaire to measure patient satisfaction in ambulatory care, enabling a detailed analysis of the determinants of patient satisfaction that is applicable in GP and specialist outpatient care.


METHODS
Questionnaire with 27 single items subdivided into four categories: "professional competence", "physician-patient interaction", "information", and "practice organisation". Survey of 3,487 patients in 123 medical practices. 1,151 patients were in specialist care and 2,336 patients in general medical care.


RESULTS
Qualiskope-A is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring patient satisfaction in ambulatory care. All item-total correlations for single items were greater than r = 0.40. Coefficients for Cronbach's alpha for the four dimensions ranged between 0.87 and 0.94.


CONCLUSIONS
The increasing political importance of patients' attitudes and satisfaction for the development of policy measures to ensure and improve the quality of care is beyond doubt. To make sure that the measurement of patient satisfaction does not only serve to meet regulatory requirements but helps to improve the quality of care and provides reliable data for health services research, a high standard is required for the questionnaires to be used. The Qualiskope-A and only few other instruments meet this high standard.
Gericke
C A
CA
Fachgebiet Management im Gesundheitswesen, Technische Universität Berlin. christian.gericke@tu-berlin.de
Schiffhorst
G
G
Busse
R
R
Häussler
B
B
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005194:Family Practice / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008511:Medicine / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013038:Specialization; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards; D017749:Total Quality Management