Psychometric refinement of an outpatient, visit-specific satisfaction with doctor questionnaire

Measuring patient's satisfaction with their physician is gaining interest but requires a questionnaire that is valid, reliable and acceptable to patients. We previously published a self-administered visit-specific satisfaction with physician questionnaire for cancer patients. Eighty outpatients at a Canadian Cancer Center completed the Princess Margaret Hospital Patient Satisfaction with Doctor Questionnaire and the FACT-G questionnaires along with demographic information just after clinic visit and again 3-5 days later. Exploratory factor analysis extracted two factors, labeled 'physician disengagement' and 'perceived support,' with average coefficient alpha values of 0.93 and 0.90. Test-retest reliability was 0.83 and 0.73, respectively, for the two factors. Confirmatory factor analysis applied to the data from 174 patients in the original study indicated excellent goodness of fit. PMH/PSQ-MD correlated moderately with FACT-G (average r=0.37, p<0.005). The PMH/PSQ-MD questionnaire is a brief, valid and reliable questionnaire that taps two complementary facets of patient satisfaction.