[Outpatient satisfaction in phoniatrics and pedaudiology].

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was the development of a standardized, reliable and valid questionnaire to evaluate outpatient satisfaction of phoniatrics and pedaudiology ambulatory care, considering specific aspects of the process and institutional features from the psychosocial point of view.
DESIGN: The stress-theoretical conceptualized questionnaire with 89 single items and 3 open questions, distinguishes between practical, appraisal, emotional, informational and participational support. The survey was conducted with 91 patients.
RESULTS: The questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring outpatient satisfaction. The interclass correlations, Cronbach's alpha and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin coefficients reached satisfactory values. Quantitative and qualitative more information about timely orientation related to operational aspects and the duration of examination and treatment, the questionnaire on the individual case history, medical instruments, examinations itself and therapy planning, all correlated with specific episodes of ambulatory care with a high degree of satisfaction.
CONCLUSIONS: Patient satisfaction is one of the central outcome parameters in medicine. It describes specific strengths and weaknesses of an institution and enables external quality comparisons. For the latter more global questions are required while increasing specificity and a number of detailed items reduce the comparability with other medical providers. A reliable and valid instrument for measuring outpatient satisfaction with a high level of specificity, practicability and relative comparability can be proposed for use in phoniatrics and pedaudiology.