A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT OF SATISFACTION WITH CARE FOR CANCER-PATIENTS

The present paper reports on the initial development of a comprehensiv e questionnaire for assessing cancer patients' perception of the quali ty of care received in the oncology hospital. This questionnaire is pr imarily intended to evaluate interventions aimed at improving quality of life and focuses on patients' interactions with doctors and nurses. The current questionnaire includes 61 items assessing doctors' and nu rses' technical competence, communication skills, interpersonal qualit ies, and availability; aspects of the hospital environment and treatme nt planning; and general satisfaction. Most items refer to an aspect o f care rated on a five-point Likert scale from ''Poor'' to ''Excellent ''. Additionally, each aspect of care is also evaluated by a dichotomo us (yes/no) question on the patient's wish (or not) for its improvemen t. This questionnaire is the result of consecutive pilot tests (from A pril 1994 to September 1995). Analysis of patients' comments, items th at patients omitted to respond to and score distributions have identif ied items needing to be rephrased, reworded, eliminated or placed in s pecific sections. Items showing low scores or acceptable score distrib utions have been stressed as appropriate for inclusion in the final qu estionnaire version.