An instrument to measure patient satisfaction with healthcare in an observational database: Results of a validation study using data from CaPSURE (TM)

Objective: To validate a satisfaction measure for use in longitudinal, pros pective studies of patient care. Study Design: Patients with biopsy-confirmed prostate cancer (n = 228) who were enrolled in CaPSURE(TM) (Cancer of the Prostate Strategic Urologic Res earch Endeavor) completed a self-administered questionnaire that included a health-related quality-of-rife and satisfaction measure. A subset of patie nts completed the questionnaire again within 30 days. Methods: The satisfaction measure contained 6 individual subscales: overall satisfaction with care, contact with providers, confidence in providers, c ommunication skills, humaneness, and a summary scale. Six items surveyed pa tients' willingness to participate in decision making (participatory style) , and these were averaged into a single score. Variability reliability, sta bility, and validity were evaluated. Results: Responses to the items varied substantially. The overall satisfact ion scale demonstrated good internal consistency reliability (Cronbach alph a = 0.82) and moderate test-retest reliability (0.62), and it could discrim inate between groups of individuals expected to differ with regard to satis faction (by age and disease stage). Subscale internal consistency reliabili ty(0.37-0.54) and stability (0.38-0.63) were weaker, suggesting that only a single scale should be reported. The participatory scale performed poorly and could not be recommended for future use. Conclusion: The overall satisfaction measure developed for this study demon strated good reliability and validity and should be useful in other populat ion-based studies in conjunction with other outcome measures.