Developing and testing a tool to evaluate the quality of home aid services

This study aimed to develop a tool to measure the quality of home aid services in Taiwan. A 28-item scale for quality of home aid was drafter based on the literature; a cross-sectional survey was conducted for those using home aid services provided by long-term care centers in southern Taiwan. A total of 537 service users responded. Participants were randomly divided into two sample groups for item analysis (n = 102) and factor analysis (n = 435). Reliability was assessed by repeated measurements for 30 participants. During 2010-2011, a second survey was conducted and 590 questionnaires were collected. The final tool consisted of 14 items. The Cronbach for the overall scale was 0.95. The scale had two major factors: positive opinions (10 items) and negative opinions (4 items). Repeatability was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient, which was 0.88. The tool is considered valid and reliable.