title: Nijmegen Continuity Questionnaire: development and testing of a questionnaire that measures continuity of care.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To develop and pilot test a generic questionnaire to measure continuity of care from the patient's perspective across primary and secondary care settings.
  
  
  METHODS
  We developed the Nijmegen Continuity Questionnaire (NCQ) based on a systematic literature review and analysis of 30 patient interviews. The questionnaire consisted of 16 items about the patient-provider relationship to be answered for five different care providers and 14 items each on the collaboration between four groups of care providers. The questionnaire was distributed among patients with a chronic disease recruited from general practice. We used principal component analysis (PCA) to identify subscales. We refined the factors by excluding several items, for example, items with a high missing rate.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In total, 288 patients filled out the questionnaire (response rate, 72%). PCA yielded three subscales: "personal continuity: care provider knows me," "personal continuity: care provider shows commitment," and "team/cross-boundary continuity." Internal consistency of the subscales ranged from 0.82 to 0.89. Interscale correlations varied between 0.42 and 0.61.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The NCQ shows to be a comprehensive, reliable, and valid instrument. Further testing of reliability, construct validity, and responsiveness is needed before the NCQ can be more widely implemented.
authors.affiliation: Department of Primary and Community Care, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, 117, PO Box 9101, 6500 HB, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. a.uijen@elg.umcn.nl
authors.forename: Annemarie A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Uijen
authors.forename: François G
authors.initials: FG
authors.lastname: Schellevis
authors.forename: Wil J H M
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: van den Bosch
authors.forename: Henk G A
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Mokkink
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: van Weel
authors.forename: Henk J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Schers
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002908:Chronic Disease; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D058006:General Practice; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011594:Psychometrics; D036301:Qualitative Research; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design; D012196:Review Literature as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*