Olaf Holmboe

The Cancer Patient Experiences Questionnaire (CPEQ): reliability and construct validity following a national survey to assess hospital cancer care from the patient perspective

Objectives Patient experience questionnaires have been criticised owing to the lack of supporting psychometric evidence. The objective of this study was to describe the development and psychometric evaluation of the Cancer Patient Experiences Questionnaire (CPEQ) in Norway. Design Questionnaire development was based on a literature review of existing questionnaires, patient interviews, expert-group consultations, pretesting of questionnaire items and a national survey. Psychometric evaluation included exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and tests of internal consistency reliability and test–retest reliability. Setting Data were collected using a postal survey of cancer patients attending 54 hospitals in all 4 health regions. The subjects were 14 227 adult cancer patients who had attended an outpatient clinic or who had been discharged from an inpatient ward. Patients with all types of cancer were included. Data quality, internal consistency reliability and construct validity were assessed. Results Of the 13 846 patients who received the CPEQ, 7212 (52%) responded. Exploratory factor analysis identified six scales of outpatient experiences relating to nurse contact, doctor contact, information, organisation, patient safety and contact with next of kin, and seven scales of inpatient experiences, with the addition of hospital standard to the aforementioned scales. All but two of the scales met the criterion of 0.70 for Cronbachs α testing, and test–retest correlations ranged from 0.57 to 0.85. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the interpretation of six and seven scales for outpatients and inpatients, respectively. Statistically significant associations based on explicit hypotheses provided evidence for the construct validity of the scales. One additional scale measuring the hospital level was identified (α=0.85). Conclusions The CPEQ is a self-report instrument that includes the most important aspects of patient experiences with cancer care at hospitals. The instrument was tested following a national survey in Norway; good evidence is provided herein for the internal consistency reliability, test–retest reliability and construct validity.

Parent experiences questionnaire for outpatient child and adolescent mental health services (PEQ-CAMHS Outpatients): reliability and validity following a national survey.

AbstactBackgroundDevelopment and evaluation of the PEQ-CAMHS Outpatients, a parent completed questionnaire to measure experiences of outpatient child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in Norway.MethodsLiterature review, parent interviews, pre-testing and a national survey of 17,080 parents of children who received care at one of the 86 outpatient CAMHS in Norway in 2006. Telephone interviews were conducted with a random sample of non-respondents. Levels of missing data, factor structure, internal consistency and construct validity were assessed.Results7,906 (46.0%) parents or primary caregivers responded to the questionnaire. Low levels of missing data suggest that the PEQ-CAMHS is acceptable. The questionnaire includes three scales supported by the results of factor analysis: relationship with health personnel (8 items), information and participation (4 items), and outcome (3 items). Item-total correlations were all above 0.6 and Cronbachs alpha correlations ranged from 0.88-0.94. The results of comparisons of scale scores with several variables relating to global satisfaction, outcome, cooperation, information, involvement and waiting time support the construct validity of the instrument.ConclusionsThe PEQ-CAMHS Outpatients questionnaire includes important aspects of outpatient CAMHS from the perspective of the parent. It has evidence for data quality, internal consistency and validity and is recommended in surveys of parent experiences of these services. Future research should assess test-retest reliability and further tests of construct validity that include clinical data are recommended.

The Universal Patient Centeredness Questionnaire: reliability and validity of a one-page questionnaire following surveys in three patient populations

Background This study developed and tested the reliability and validity of the Universal Patient Centeredness Questionnaire (UPC-Q). Methods The UPC-Q developed in this study has three parts: 1) the aspects that patients consider the most important when receiving a relevant health care service, rating the health care services on these aspects and their prioritization, 2) the overall experiences of patients using the relevant health care service, and 3) suggestions for improvements. The UPC-Q was tested in four different patient-experience surveys in 2015, including psychiatric inpatients (n=109), general practitioner (GP) patients (n=1,059), and inpatients from two hospital samples (n=973, n=599). The UPC-Q was tested for item completeness and ceiling effects, while the UPC-Q scale consisting of the first part of the UPC-Q was tested for internal consistency reliability and construct validity. Results The percentage of patients rating at least one aspect was 70.6% for psychiatric inpatients, 77.6% for hospital inpatients, and 90.6% for GP patients, while 88.9% of the psychiatric inpatients, 93.1% of the hospital inpatients, and 95.3% of the GP patients were able to prioritize the aspects. The internal consistency reliability of the UPC-Q scale was acceptable in all samples (Cronbach’s alpha >0.7), and construct validity was supported by 20 of 21 significant associations between the UPC-Q and related variables. The UPC-Q total score was skewed toward positive evaluations, but the ceiling effect was smaller for an unbalanced response scale than for a balanced scale. Conclusion The UPC-Q includes ratings of what is most important for individual patients, while at the same time providing data for improving the quality of health care and making it possible to monitor trends within and across patient populations. This study included psychiatric inpatients, hospital inpatients, and GP patients, and found that the UPC-Q performed well in terms of acceptance, internal consistency reliability, and construct validity.