Sixma HJ, Foets M, Dekker J; International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care. Meeting.
Annu Meet Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Int Soc Technol Assess Health Care Meet. 1999; 15: 152.
Netherlands Institute of Primary Health Care (NIVEL), P.O. Box 1568, 3500 BN, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
OBJECTIVE: Feedback from frequent users of health care services is of paramount importance for quality assessment and quality assurance in the health care sector. Purpose of our study is (1) to describe the assessment of two new instruments measuring quality of care from the patients' perspective, and (2) to explore the relationship between quality judgements and morbidity related characteristics. METHODS: Qualitative and quantitative methods were used as part of a Community Intervention Trial (CTI). Based on focus group discussions with rheumatic patients and patients with chronic non-specific lung diseases (CNSLD), two revised quality of care measuring instruments were applied to samples of 1000 patients per category. Data, including questions about self-assessed health and (co)morbidity, were collected in March 1998. Response rate was approximately 55%. Data were analyzed using t-tests statistics and analysis of variance. RESULTS: CNSLD-patients differ from patients with rheumatism in their expectations about good quality of care. Partly, these expectations refer to disease-related quality aspects. Secondly, there are significant differences in the importance judgements assigned to the quality aspects, both within and between the two categories of patients. In general, higher importance scores are associated with more health care problems, higher age, a more frequent use of health care services and membership of patient organizations. CONCLUSIONS: The inclusion of disease-specific quality of care aspects improves the validity of instruments measuring quality of care from the patients' perspective. Data derived from such disease-specific instruments will make it possible to develop quality improvement programs tailored to the patients' needs and expectations, although attention has to be paid to morbidity related characteristics within patient categories.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Delivery of Health Care
- Health Services
- Health Services Research
- Health Services for the Aged
- Humans
- Research Design
- Rheumatic Diseases
- hsrmtgs
Other ID:
UI: 102194259
From Meeting Abstracts