The Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire Short-form (PSQ-18)

Book excerpt: This article reports on the development and psychometric properties of a short-form version of the 50-item Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire III (PSQ-III). The short-form instrument, the PSQ-18, contains 18 items tapping each of the seven dimensions of satisfaction with medical care measured by the PSQ-III: general satisfaction, technical quality, interpersonal manner, communication, financial aspects, time spent with doctor, and accessibility and convenience. PSQ-18 subscale scores are substantially correlated with their full-scale counterparts and possess generally adequate internal consistency reliability. Moreover, both the magnitude of the correlation coefficients and the overall pattern of correlations among PSQ-18 subscales are highly similar to those observed for the PSQ-III. These preliminary analyses support the use of the PSQ-18 in situations where the need for brevity precludes administration of the full-length PSQ-III.