Clinimetric scale to measure surgeons' satisfaction with anesthesia services

Purpose: Continuous quality improvement is of increasing interest to anesth esiologists. Since surgeons are coworkers and important clients of anesthes iologists, the level of satisfaction of surgeons with anesthesia services s hould be explored to optimize quality. The purpose of this study was, first , to introduce the concept of surgeons as clients of anesthesiologists and second, to develop and test an instrument to measure surgeons' satisfaction , the Surgeon Satisfaction with Anesthesia Services (SSAS) scale, Methods: A conceptual model of surgeon satisfaction with anesthesia service s was created before the development of the SSAS scale. The scale, composed of socio-demographic, Likert-type and open-ended questions was sent to a s ample of 250 surgeons selected randomly by the College des Medecins du Queb ec Exploratory factorial analysis were performed on the results. Results: A Cronbach's alpha of 0.84 was obtained for internal consistency. Exploratory factorial analysis yielded two subscale factors: a) clinical ex pertise and b) attitudes and behaviour. Global mean of surgeons' satisfacti on was moderately high (3.11/4.0). Satisfaction was not related to sociodem ographic variables. Very high scores were obtained for items related to cli nical expertise. Items related to attitudes and behaviour obtained lower sc ores. A significant difference was obtained between both factors (t = -5.73 2, P = 0.0001). Conclusion: The SSAS scale is a new instrument to evaluate surgeon satisfac tion, Overall, surgeons seem satisfied with anesthesia services, but many a reas of dissatisfaction persist. Further discussions with surgeons should b e encouraged, in view of improving the perceptions of the quality of anesth esia services and interprofessional relationships.