Development and validation of the questionnaire of satisfaction with perioperative anesthetic care for general and regional anesthesia in Taiwanese patients.

BACKGROUND

To fulfill the increasing demand of service quality improvement in recent years, it is imperative to develop a proper instrument to evaluate patient satisfaction with perioperative anesthetic care for many institutes in Taiwan.

METHODS

We used a six-factor 32-item pilot questionnaire developed in our previous study as our starting point in this study. Exploratory factor analysis of the pilot questionnaire for factor structure generation was performed in general anesthesia patients (group 1, n = 320) and resulted in the generation of the Patient Satisfaction with Perioperative Anesthetic Care questionnaire (PSPACq). Confirmatory factor analysis of the PSPACq in general anesthesia (group 2, n = 565) and regional anesthesia (group 3, n = 225) patients was performed for validation and cross-validation of the PSPACq model, respectively. The confounding variables and the patient loyalty effects on PSPACq scores were analyzed to evaluate the nomological validity of the PSPACq.

RESULT

Exploratory factor analysis of the pilot questionnaire in group 1 resulted in the development of the PSPACq (a seven-factor 30-item model). The standardized coefficients and indexes for the assessment of fit of the PSPACq model in group 2 (validation) and group 3 (cross-validation) patients revealed a well-fitting model. The results of the loyalty scores and confounding variables support the nomological validity of the PSPACq.

CONCLUSIONS

A valid and reliable questionnaire (PSPACq) with Taiwanese culture characteristics was developed and is suitable for testing of patient satisfaction with perioperative anesthesia care for patients receiving general or regional anesthesia for their surgery.