Validation of the Health Care Communication Questionnaire (HCCQ) to measure outpatients’ experience of communication with hospital staff

ObjectiveAll healthcare workers’ communication skills are recognised as valuable indicators of quality of care from the patient's perspective. Most of the studies measure doctor–patient communication, giving scarce attention to other professionals. This study is aimed at developing and providing preliminary validation of a questionnaire to measure outpatients’ experience of communication with hospital personnel other than doctors.MethodsSmall groups of outpatients and hospital staffs were involved in identifying the domains and generating the items. A quantitative validation phase involving 401 outpatients followed in order to verify the hypothesised dimensionality of selected items and to measure reliability.ResultsA 13-item questionnaire emerged, comprising four components of outpatients’ experience in the healthcare communication domain: problem solving, respect, lack of hostility, and nonverbal immediacy. Psychometric tests were promising as regards factorial validity, evaluated with confirmatory factor analysis, and scales reliability. Factor scores were independent of patients’ gender, age, and education.ConclusionThe developed Health Care Communication Questionnaire (HCCQ) is a self-administered brief measure with good psychometric properties.Practice implicationsThe HCCQ gives information that could be taken as an indirect and subjective indicator of the quality of hospital services as provided by non-medical staff. This aspect may have a role in local quality improvement initiatives.