[Development of a questionnaire to assess the quality of the preanesthetic visit]

In the current study a questionnaire was developed to evaluate the preanesthetic visit to prepare patients for general anesthesia with regard to the effects on in-hospital quality of care. The questionnaire consists of one part pertaining to patient satisfaction and one part pertaining to the information gained from the preanesthetic visit. In a first phase, the questionnaire was generated and then validated in 104 patients undergoing general or vascular surgery at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. As a result of the pretest evaluation, the preliminary pool of questions could be reduced. Consequently, the final questionnaire is composed of six questions on patient satisfaction and six questions on information gained after the preanesthetic visit as well as one question regarding the number of preanesthetic consultations prior to general anesthesia. In the part of the questionnaire on patient satisfaction, responses can be given on a 6-point scale ranging from -3 (statement is not correct) to +3 (statement is correct). The scores -3 to +3 are assigned 1-6 points, in order to calculate a total sum score to measure patient satisfaction. The part on information gained contains multiple-choice questions with four possible answers, of which only one is correct. Analogous to the measurement of patient satisfaction, a total sum score can be calculated to evaluate the information gain after the preanesthetic visit. The present study shows the suitability of a questionnaire to evaluate the quality of health care after the preanesthetic visit with the parameters patient satisfaction and information gain. Such a questionnaire can be used to compare different premedication techniques and, thus, might contribute to improve the quality of health care.