The Patient Experiences Questionnaire for Out-of-Hours Care (PEQ-OHC): data quality, reliability, and validity

Objective. To develop and evaluate the Patient Experiences Questionnaire for Out-of-Hours Care (PEQ-OHC) in Norway. Design. Questionnaire development was based on a systematic literature review of existing questionnaires, interviews with users, and expert group consultation. Questionnaire testing followed a postal survey of users who had attended out-of-hours centres in the North, West, and South of Norway. Setting. Primary care out-of-hours services. Subjects. The questionnaire was pre-tested with 13 users and was then mailed to 542 users who had had telephone contact and/or had a consultation with one of three out-of-hours centres. Main outcome measures. Data quality, internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity. Results. The questionnaire was considered to have good content validity by the expert group. There were 225 (41.51%) respondents to the postal questionnaire. Levels of missing data at the item and scale level were acceptable. Principal component analysis supported the four scales of user experiences relating to telephone contact, doctor services, nursing services, and organization. Item-total correlations were all above 0.5 and Cronbach's alpha was above 0.80 for all scales. Statistically significant associations based on explicit hypotheses were evidence for the construct validity of the PEQ-OHC. Conclusion. The development of the PEQ-OHC followed a rigorous process based on a systematic review, interviews with users, and an expert group which lend the questionnaire content validity. The PEQ-OHC has evidence for data quality, internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity.