Satisfaction with anesthesia: a review of the available instruments

Evaluating patient satisfaction: in France, patient satisfaction is a crite ria for health care facility accreditation. In this context, the anesthesia community has studied tools available for assessing satisfaction with anes thesia. Limitations of available instruments: The construction of a satisfaction as sessment instrument can be divided into three phases: design, sorting items , validation. Instruments available in the currently literature (1987-1997) focus mainly on pie, per- or postoperative management but little on overal l patient satisfaction. As the concept of satisfaction concerns a variety o f elements, many of the available instruments use a muitidimensional approa ch. The areas explored however vary greatly depending on the author or the study. In addition, patient experience is rarely taken into consideration w hen designing instruments. Four instruments: Among the available instruments we retained 4 questionnai res: Patient Satisfaction with General Anaesthesia, Peri-operative Anesthes ia Experience Scale, Iowa satisfaction with Anesthesia Scale, and Amerstada m Preoperative Anxiety and Information Scale. These last 2 scales only asse ss patient information and anxiety. The Peri-operative Anesthesia Experienc e Scale alone is available in French (Echelle de Vecu perioperatoire de l'A nesthesie). Patient satisfaction is also approached with specialized instru ments designed to assess specific items. The most widely used scales assess anxiety and pain. Based on these findings, it is clear that the fundamenta l concept of patient satisfaction must be revisited. We propose a few point s for thought.