Development,reliability and validity evaluation of a satisfaction scale for patients after healthcare reform

Objective To develop a satisfaction scale for patients after healthcare reform and to evaluate the reliability and validity of the scale.Methods The patients' satisfaction scale was developed with literature review,focus group interview,and Delphi method.Then the complied scale was applied among 258 outpatients randomly selected with stratified sampling from 3 public hospitals and 6 community healthcare centers in Guangzhou city in 2014 and the reliability and validity of the scale were evaluated.Results The patients' satisfaction scale was composed of 23 items and 5 dimensions including reform in public hospital,system of medical care insurance,medicine prescription,management and supervision on medical service,and promotion of traditional Chinese medicine,which could explain 88.223% of overall variance of the scale.Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.98 for the whole scale and 0.93,0.88,0.86,0.86,and 0.83 for the 5 domains of the scale,respectively.The correlation coefficients between the domain scores and the total score of the scale ranged from 0.881 to 0.937(all P<0.01).Conclusion The patients' satisfaction scale developed primarily is reliable and valid and could be used as a tool to evaluate patients'satisfaction to medical service after healthcare reform.