Development of an instrument to measure face validity, feasibility and utility of patient questionnaire use during health care: the QQ-10

OBJECTIVE: To develop and establish the psychometric properties of an instrument to measure face validity, feasibility and utility of patient questionnaires used during health care. DESIGN: Our instrument, QQ-10, is a 10-item self-completed questionnaire, which was developed during the evaluation of another questionnaire (ePAQ-PF), to assess patients' views on questionnaire use during health care. SETTING: Urogynaecology Department, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, UK. PARTICIPANTS: The Sheffield maternity patient user group identified 10 key themes relating to patients' views on using questionnaires; these themes translated into 10 statements, each using the same 5-point Likert response scale. INTERVENTION: Not applicable. Outcome Measures Principal component analysis established the factor structure of our instrument. Internal reliability was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. Construct validity was assessed using Spearman's rho. RESULTS: Factor analysis yielded two meaningful factors: Value and Burden, both achieving Cronbach's alpha scores >0.7. Significant correlations were found between scores for Value and communication experience and between scores for Burden and barriers to health care. CONCLUSIONS: Our instrument offers a valid, reliable measure of patients' views relating to value and burden of using health-related quality of life questionnaires. Its two domains show good internal reliability and with its free text items, it may offer a valuable, standardized assessment of face validity and utility of other questionnaires used in health care.