Development and validation of an Ambulatory Care Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire to assess pharmacy services in Malaysia

Abstract

Background Assessing patient satisfaction regarding a pharmacy ambulatory care service is important as patient satisfaction is a determinant of the viability and sustainability of the service provided. Objective To develop and validate the Ambulatory Care Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire in Malaysia. Setting A public hospital in Malaysia with two outpatient pharmacies. The main outpatient pharmacy has an average waiting time of 1-2 h; whilst PharmCARE (which prepares repeat prescriptions in advance) has an average waiting time of 5-15 min. Method Our instrument was developed based on literature review, a theoretical framework and an expert panel. The initial version consisted of 20 Likert-type items (where a higher score indicates higher satisfaction) was administered to patients/carers who were ≥ 21 years, from November 2015 to June 2016 at baseline and 2 weeks later. Main outcome measure The psychometric properties of the instrument. Results A total of 200/220 participants agreed to participate (response rate = 90.9%): main outpatient pharmacy = 114, PharmCARE = 86. Flesch reading ease was 51.9. The final version consists of 17 items with five domains measuring information (4 items), accessibility (4 items), relationship (4 items), outcomes (2 items) and continuity of care (3 items). Participants who collected their medications from PharmCARE [78.0% (72.8-81.3)] were significantly more satisfied than participants from the main outpatient pharmacy [72.0% (68.0-76.0), p < 0.001]. The overall Cronbach's alpha value was 0.839. Kappa values ranged from 0.681 to 0.914. Conclusion Our instrument was found to be a valid and reliable instrument to assess satisfaction of patients towards an ambulatory care pharmacy service in Malaysia.

Factors associated with patient satisfaction towards pharmacy services among out-patients attending public health clinics: Questionnaire development and its application

“…Another questionnaire was also recently developed for outpatient pharmacy in a Malaysian public hospital [8]. The Ambulatory Care Pharmacy Services Questionnaire (ACPSQ) has 17 items under five domains (information, accessibility, relationship, outcomes and continuity of care).…”

“…Validation study was conducted among patients who had encountered a pharmacist at any public or private hospital. Another questionnaire was also developed and validated in an outpatients centre situated in a tertiary hospital in Malaysia [8]. To date, no questionnaire has been developed specifically to assess patient satisfaction for public health clinic pharmacy services in Malaysia.…”

Patient satisfaction with medication therapy adherence clinic services in a district hospital: a cross-sectional study

“… 21 However, the contradictory result could be observed from some ambulatory care studies. 12 , 22 Women are deemed to be more selective; their expectations will be higher and cannot be met. 12 …”

“…Meanwhile, no significant differences were denoted for age, race and marital status with patient satisfaction, which was consistent with previous studies. 22 , 24 …”

Validez y confiabilidad de la escala de satisfacción de los usuarios de consulta médica ambulatoria en Perú

“…Sin embargo, dicho modelo no fue verificado a través de un AFC, por lo que podría expresarse de forma distinta en otros países u otros sistemas de salud (36) . En Malasia, se evaluó la satisfacción con el servicio ambulatorio de las farmacias de los hospitales a través de un cuestionario de 20 ítems administrado a 200 participantes, en dicho estudio se encontraron cinco dimensiones relacionadas, aunque el tamaño de muestra el AFE podría no tener suficiente adecuación muestral (37) . En Perú, el 2012, Cabello y Chirinos (38) realizaron una adaptación y validación del cuestionario SERVQUAL en 384 usuarios de consulta externa y emergencias de un hospital público.…”