THE YOUTH CLIENT SATISFACTION QUESTIONNAIRE - DEVELOPMENT, CONSTRUCT-VALIDATION, AND FACTOR STRUCTURE

Developed and pilot-tested a measure of satisfaction with mental healt h services for young clients. One hundred fifty youth from 11 to 17 ye ars of age who had completed services received the measure as a teleph one interview. Fourteen of 17 candidate items met criteria for test-re test reliability, part-whole correlation, and correlation with a valid ation item, and they were retained in the instrument. Total score rest -retest reliability and internal consistency were highly satisfactory. Principal components analysis revealed two factors, labeled Relations hip With Therapist and Benefits of Therapy. Unexpectedly, satisfaction scores were not related to change in youth self-reported behavior pro blems. However, convergent validity was indicated by significant relat ionships with change in parent-reported behavior problems, parent sati sfaction, parent ratings of treatment progress, therapist ratings of p rogress, and Global Assessment of Functioning change scores. These res ults indicate that the Youth Client Satisfaction Questionnaire is a re liable and valid measure of consumer evaluations of their treatment.