Objectives: Following 1996 legislation requiring French hospitals to assess patient satisfaction, this study developed and validated a brief French-language multidimensional questionnaire designed to measure outpatient satisfaction with hospital visits and compared data quality for two patient-satisfaction survey methods.
Design: Authors developed a 19-item questionnaire following a strict procedure (identification of dimensions to explore, formulation, and selection of items).
Setting: Validation data were obtained from patients of six outpatient clinics in a teaching hospital.
Participants: 586 consenting eligible patients were randomized to receive the questionnaire 2 weeks after their visit with one of two survey methods: a mailed self-administered questionnaire or a telephone interview.
Results: The response rate (79%) was not significantly different between the two survey methods. The risk of having one or more missing values was higher in the mail survey group (odds ratio, 1.65; 95% confidence interval, 1.03-2.63), but mail respondents were less likely to use the "extremely positive" response category. Principal component analysis identified four factors that accounted for 56% of the variance: interpersonal skills and information transfer, physical surroundings, convenience, and appointment delay. Patients' comments on open-ended questions validated the semantic content of the factorial construct. The internal consistency coefficient was greater than 0.70 for three of four subscales. Patient background characteristics accounted for less than 10% of the factorial score variance. Patient satisfaction was correlated with age, type of visit, and, to a lesser extent, gender and education level.
Conclusion: This easily administered, multidimensional out-patient-satisfaction questionnaire provided encouraging preliminary psychometric characteristics.