Satisfaction Scale for Community Nursing: development and validation.

AIM

This study is a report of the development and testing of the Satisfaction Scale for Community Nursing for measuring patient satisfaction with community nursing.

BACKGROUND

Measuring patient satisfaction with a psychometrically sound instrument is important if patient judgment is used as a quality indicator to evaluate the quality of the service.

METHODS

Service users and providers participated in generating items for a questionnaire related to the concept of patient satisfaction. A convenient sample of 121 patients receiving care from the Community Nursing Service was recruited to pilot the questionnaire for its initial validation in 2005. Content validity and factor analysis of the draft questionnaire were assessed. Psychometric properties of the final questionnaire were assessed using data from 80 patients in a validation study conducted during 2006.

RESULTS

A 17-item satisfaction questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale measuring three quality domains was developed: technical competence, coordination of services and interpersonal relationships in community nursing. Cronbach's alpha was 0.90. Principal component analysis with varimax rotation yielded three factors with eigenvalues >1; these accounted for 76.6% of the total variance. The factor loadings of the items ranged from >0.64 to 0.84. The concurrent validity of the scale associated with two conceptually related variables was 0.61 (P < 0.05) and 0.66 (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

The questionnaire may be valuable for assessing the satisfaction level of clients with community nursing service in meeting their expectations, and thus for enhancing treatment adherence and improving the quality of care.