Development and validation of a Chinese outpatient satisfaction questionnaire: evidence from 46 public general hospitals and 5151 outpatients.

OBJECTIVE

To develop and test a reliable and practical self-administrated questionnaire in Chinese to evaluate outpatient satisfaction in China.

DESIGN

In order to ensure content validity, the 19 items of this questionnaire were generated based on literature review, interview and group discussion. Acceptability was tested by the percentage of missing item responses and the time and operability of administration. Construct validity was evaluated using principal component exploratory factor analysis and item-total correlations. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach's alpha coefficient and inter-subscale correlation.

SETTING

This study was conducted in 46 public general hospitals that report directly to the Provincial Health Department in Hunan Province, China.

SUBJECTS

In total, 5151 outpatients were selected at random and asked to complete the questionnaire after they finished their medical procedures in the outpatient area.

RESULTS

The extremely low rate of missing data (0-0.04%) suggested good acceptability of the questionnaire. Factor analysis generated six dimensions, and all item-total coefficients were >0.8. Cronbach's alpha exceeded 0.7 for all dimensions, and the inter-subscale correlation coefficients were all lower than the Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the corresponding scale. According to the results, outpatients were least satisfied with waiting time (86.8%) and most satisfied with the quality of medical care (90.1%).

CONCLUSION

The Chinese outpatient satisfaction questionnaire has good acceptability, validity and reliability. It was effective and efficient for measuring outpatient satisfaction in a Chinese population.