TO WHOM DO YOU REFER - A REFERRER SATISFACTION STUDY

Objective: To report the development of a referrer satisfaction measur e. Method: Urban and rural general practitioners, physicians, neurolog ists, as well as obstetricians and gynaecologists rated 36 items in te rms of their judged importance to the respondent's satisfaction with a psychiatric service, Responses of the whole sample and component prac titioner sub-groups were ranked. Results: We established a high level of agreement across the several subgroups suggesting that we had ident ified general rather than idiosyncratic variables contributing to refe rrer satisfaction, Referrers prioritised as most important the immedia cy of initial appointment, the psychiatrist reporting at the beginning and end of any treatment course, and ready verbal communication betwe en the referrer and the psychiatrist, Items accorded low priority were the psychiatrist's billing arrangements, the psychiatrist being 'perf ect' (in either having a high 'cure' rate or making a definitive diagn osis initially), or the psychiatrist taking complete responsibility fo r difficult patients, A principal components analysis identified four factors underpinning the item set, and we again established that score s an these factors were not influenced by the particular referrer sub- group. Conclusions: Such findings suggest that only minor modification s would need to be made to the item set in developing a referrer satis faction measure for quality assurance activities.