Development of the Chinese primary care assessment tool: data quality and measurement properties

The aim of this study was to translate and adapt the Primary Care Assessment Tool to assess the perceptions of the quality of primary care among patients in China and to examine the psychometric properties of the adapted Primary Care Assessment Tool Chinese version (PCAT-C).

A cross-sectional survey to assess the validity and reliability of PCAT-C using standard psychometric techniques.

Outpatient departments of five state-level and provincial-level hospitals and four municipal-level hospitals as well as nine community health centers in Changsha, China.

A total of 2532 patients visiting primary care providers.

The PCAT-C was acceptable to patients, as evidenced by low proportions of missing data and a full range of possible scores for all items. Two items were eliminated following principal component analysis and reliability testing. The principal component analysis extracted eight multiple-item scales and one single-item scale. Multiple-item scales had reasonable internal consistency and high item-scale correlations.

This study represents the first attempt to construct an instrument for assessing patient reports on the quality of primary care, which is applicable to the Chinese context. Psychometric assessments indicated that the PCAT-C is a useful instrument for assessing the core attributes of primary care in China.