British Journal of Anaesthesia, 2002, Vol. 89, No. 6 863-872
© 2002 The Board of Management and Trustees of the British Journal of Anaesthesia
Clinical Investigations |
Patient satisfaction with anaesthesia care: development of a psychometric questionnaire and benchmarking among six hospitals in Switzerland and Austria
1 Department of Anaesthesiology, St Gallen Cantonal Hospital, Rorschacherstrasse 95, CH-9007 St Gallen, Switzerland. 2 Picker Institute Europe, Zug, Switzerland. 3 Empirical Consulting, Freiburg, Germany. 4 Department of Anaesthesiology, Rätisches Cantonal Hospital, Chur, Switzerland. 5 Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, Landeskrankenhaus Feldkirch, Austria. 6 Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, The Leopold-Franzens-University of Innsbruck, Austria. 7 Department of Anaesthesiology, St Vincent’s Hospital, Linz, Austria. 8 Department of Anaesthesiology, University Hospital of Bern, Switzerland*Corresponding author
Declaration of interest. Y. Husemann is the country manager of the Picker Institute Europe in Switzerland, which partly funded this study. 
Some of the data were presented at the meeting of the European Society of Anaesthesiology (Gothenburg, April 2001), and published in abstract form (Eur J Anaesthesiol 2001; 18: A12).
*The appendix is available to subscribers with the online version of the journal at the journal website.
Background. We describe the development and comparison of a psychometric questionnaire on patient satisfaction with anaesthesia care among six hospitals.
Methods. We used a rigorous protocol: generation of items, construction of the pilot questionnaire, pilot study, statistical analysis (construct validity, factor analysis, reliability analysis), compilation of the final questionnaire, main study, repeated analysis of construct validity and reliability. We compared the mean total problem score and the scores for the dimensions: ‘Information/Involvement in decision-making’, and ‘Continuity of personal care by anaesthetist’. The influence of potential confounding variables was tested (multiple linear regression).
Results. The average problem score from all hospitals was 18.6%. Most problems are mentioned in the dimensions ‘Information/Involvement in decision-making’ (mean problem score: 30.9%) and ‘Continuity of personal care by anaesthetist’ (mean problem score: 32.2%). The overall assessment of the quality of anaesthesia care was good to excellent in 98.7% of cases. The most important dimension was ‘Information/Involvement in decision-making’. The mean total problem score was significantly lower for two hospitals than the total mean for all hospitals (significantly higher at two hospitals) (P<0.05). Amongst the confounding variables considered, age, sex, subjective state of health, type of anaesthesia and level of education had an influence on the total problem score and the two dimensions mentioned. There were only marginal differences with and without the influence of the confounding variables for the different hospitals.
Conclusions. A psychometric questionnaire on patient satisfaction with anaesthesia care must cover areas such as patient information, involvement in decision-making, and contact with the anaesthetist. The assessment using summed scores for dimensions is more informative than a global summed rating. There were significant differences between hospitals. Moreover, the high problem scores indicate a great potential for improvement at all hospitals.
Br J Anaesth 2002; 89: 863–72
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