VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY OF THE PARENT SATISFACTION QUESTIONNAIRE

The development of a postal consumer satisfaction questionnaire for a child and adolescent psychology service is reported. A preliminary ana lysis of content, construct and concurrent validity suggests that the questionnaire has an acceptable degree of validity. Factor analysis id entified five factors with three being identifiable as relating to the outcome of contact, appointments and the timing of contact. The remai ning two factors were minor dyads which were difficult to interpret. T he reliability and utility of the questionnaire is good, proving a use ful way of identifying service shortfalls and directing service change . The need to methodologically evaluate consumer satisfaction question naires is stressed and their routine use in monitoring and assuring se rvice quality highlighted.