Construct validation of an instrument to measure patient satisfaction with pharmacy services in Nigerian hospitals

Patient satisfaction is a multidimensional construct that reflects the type and quality of service provided by healthcare providers, how well it is delivered, and the extent to which the expectations and needs of patients are met. As a performance measure, patient satisfaction has been defined as the personal evaluation of health care services and providers.

To develop a patient satisfaction scale, that could be used to assess the quality of pharmacy services provided in Nigerian hospitals and to determine the construct validity of the scale with a view to identifying the factors that may be considered relevant to the target users.

The questionnaire was a 35-item inventory titled "Patient Satisfaction Survey (PSS)". This study was carried out in three university teaching hospitals located in Southwestern Nigeria. The patient satisfaction survey instrument (PSS) was administered on 506 clinic outpatients who patronised the hospital pharmacies. Participation in the study was voluntary with appropriate informed consent. Ethical approval was obtained for this study from the Medical and Ethics Committee of Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC).

Patients with post secondary education were in the majority with a frequency of 224 (44.3%) subjects. This was followed by a frequency of 116 (22.9%) for those with secondary education. Eighty-seven (17.2%) of those included in the main study had primary education 64 (12.7%) did not receive any formal education. Fifteen (3%) out of the 506 sampled did not indicate their level of education.

This study developed a scale to measure patient satisfaction with pharmaceutical services in selected Nigerian university teaching hospitals. The final 25 item scale presents significant and stable coefficients of correlation and yielded six derived dimensions of patient satisfaction.