THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY HEMODIALYSIS PATIENT SATISFACTION SCALE - RELIABILITY, VALIDITY, AND SCALE DEVELOPMENT

Patient satisfaction is frequently used to evaluate service quality. A lthough this is a common construct, satisfaction scale development has often overlooked the importance of psychometric properties and the un iqueness of patient experiences. Although there is a substantial body of literature investigating satisfaction with general patient services and physicians, development in the areas of multidisciplinary team as sessment, specific patient populations, and minority groups is needed. To date, only one hemodialysis patient satisfaction scale with attent ion to psychometric properties appears to be available. However, this instrument does not assess satisfaction with the roles of the full hem odialysis treatment team. The present study reports the development an d preliminary reliability and validity studies of the Multidisciplinar y Hemodialysis Patient Satisfaction Scale (MHPSS). This 110-item Liker t scale assesses the degree of satisfaction with the health care servi ces of a multidisciplinary hemodialysis team. Methods used to construc t the subscales, measuring different dimensions of service, include it em analyses and principal components factor analysis. Matched-pair ite ms were included and partialled out of a correlation matrix to control for inconsistent responding or for possible response biases. Results indicate that the MHPSS is psychometrically sound and may be a useful tool for assessment of patient satisfaction and continuous quality ass essment of hemodialysis services.