title: Validation of the Patient-Doctor-Relationship Questionnaire (PDRQ-9) in a representative cross-sectional German population survey.
abstract: The patient-doctor relationship (PDR) as perceived by the patient is an important concept in primary care and psychotherapy. The PDR Questionnaire (PDRQ-9) provides a brief measure of the therapeutic aspects of the PDR in primary care. We assessed the internal and external validity of the German version of the PDRQ-9 in a representative cross-sectional German population survey that included 2,275 persons aged ≥14 years who reported consulting with a primary care physician (PCP). The acceptance of the German version of this questionnaire was good. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that the PRDQ-9 was unidimensional. The internal reliability (Cronbach's α) of the total score was .95. The corrected item-total correlations were ≥.94. The mean satisfaction index of persons with a probable depressive disorder was lower than that of persons without a probable depressive disorder, indicating good discriminative concurrent criterion validity. The correlation coefficient between satisfaction with PDR and satisfaction with pain therapy was r = .51 in 489 persons who reported chronic pain, indicating good convergent validity. Despite the limitation of low variance in the PDRQ-9 total scores, the results indicate that the German version of the PDRQ-9 is a brief questionnaire with good psychometric properties to assess German patients' perceived therapeutic alliance with PCPs in public health research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zenger
authors.affiliation: Department of General Internal Medicine and Psychosomatics, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schaefert
authors.affiliation: Tranzo Department, Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Tilburg, Tilburg; Clinical Center for Body, Mind and Health, Tilburg, The Netherlands; Trimbos Instituut, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: van der Feltz-Cornelis
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany.
authors.forename: Elmar
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Brähler
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine I, Klinikum Saarbrücken, Saarbrücken, Germany; Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Technische Universität München, München, Germany.
authors.forename: Winfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Häuser
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D019538:Health Care Surveys / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011320:Primary Health Care; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult