Satisfaction in mental health care: Examining psychometric properties of experience of service questionnaire

Abstract

Measuring satisfaction with psychological health services is important in clinical settings to evaluate the benefits of treatment. Past research has shown that relationship with therapist is at the core of satisfaction reports. However, measurement tools focusing on patients’ psychological health care experiences are rather scarce. The objective of this study is to adapt the Experience of Service Questionnaire (ESQ) Parent form and examine its psychometric properties in a Turkish population. ESQ Parent form was presented to parents (N = 265) of children who have received treatment at a university’s psychological counseling center. Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was gathered from parents pre- and post-treatment to measure symptomatic gains and investigate their associations with satisfaction with treatment. Confirmatory factor analysis comparing two different constructs showed that the 2-factor structure had a better fit. In addition, participants showing higher therapeutic gains showed significantly higher satisfaction in ESQ. This study is the first to measure satisfaction in psychological health care settings in Turkey, and therefore aims to contribute to a gap in the field. Results indicate a significant association between treatment outcome and satisfaction levels. Also, adapted measurement tool demonstrates adequate reliability and validity scores supporting its use in clinical settings.

Plain Language Summary

Measuring Satisfaction in Mental Health Care: Measuring satisfaction in psychological health services could improve the quality of treatment and provide feedback to therapists. We aimed to adapt a questionnaire for measuring satisfaction in clinical settings in Turkey. We asked 265 parents whose children received psychological treatment at a university’s counseling center to fill out a satisfaction questionnaire to evaluate their experiences with the services they received. Our findings show that the quality of patient-therapist relationship is a main factor that affects satisfaction in psychological health services. Moreover, environmental factors such as location and facilities may also be important factors in satisfaction with health services. Lastly, we showed that satisfaction was associated with better treatment outcome; patients who showed more clinical improvement in treatment also reported higher satisfaction with the services received. Our study has underlined factors that affect satisfaction levels (relationship with therapist and environmental arrangements) in mental health care settings. We also identified how measuring satisfaction with psychological health services could be of use in clinical settings. We hope that our study would help mental health workers to take notice of the relationship between satisfaction and therapeutic progress.