Concurrent Validation of Short Form of the Patient Evaluation Scale (PES-SF) and Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ-18) in Primary Health Centres in Port Harcourt

Abstract

The study examined the measurement properties of the short form of the Patient Evaluation Scale (PES-SF) against the Patient Satisfaction  Questionnaire-18 (PSQ-18). The study was a cross-sectional, counterbalanced design. The study involved 384 respondents from four of the 12 PHCs in  Port Harcourt City Local Government Area, selected through a 2-staged random sampling. The PSQ-18 and PES-SF were administered, and a series of  converging statistical analyses were conducted to examine the acceptability, internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity of both instruments.  The majority of the subjects were female (77.9%), aged between 20 and 29 years (40.1%), married (67.4%) with good self-rated health status (74.7%). The  average time of completion of PSQ-18 (9 ± 2.3 minutes) and the PES-SF (8.5 ± 1.5 minutes) was not statistically significant. Item response characteristics  were satisfactory for both scales and scales' scores were strongly correlated (r = 0.91, 95% CI:0.89, 0.93, p<0.001), it demonstrated a high internal  consistency with Cronbach's alphas of 0.89 and 0.88 for the PSQ18 and PES-SF respectively. Subscales correlation with validating single-item scales  ranged from weak (r = 0.21, 95%CI: 0.10, 0.31) to strong (r = 0.95, 95%CI: 0.93, 0.96). Both discriminated patients' scores based on their self-rated health  status. High congruency in the score distribution characteristics of PES-SF and PSQ-18, and both demonstrated acceptable level of acceptability, internal  consistency, and validity. Finding supports use of the PES-SF being a contextually and psychometrically sound questionnaire for measuring patient     satisfaction with primary health care in Nigeria.