Increasing the Validity of Client Satisfaction Surveys

对心理健康服务满意度的评估很重要，因为它提供了与消费者对治疗过程的主观体验有关的独特信息。然而，在衡量客户满意度方面存在一些问题。客户通常对各种治疗方式表示高度满意，这会导致天花板效应、范围限制和非正态分布。一致的高水平的客户满意度报告威胁到标准相关和结构效度的可用工具。本研究的目的是开发一种方法，可以改善客户满意度的评估，导致更有效的数据。将评估开放式问题和评级程序对客户满意度问卷-8（CSQ-8）项目评分的影响。排名和开放式问题可能有助于更好地处理与治疗有关的问题，导致在完成满意度调查时对项目的区分更大。心理健康客户（N =180）将完成CSQ-8在四个条件之一。第1组将根据重要性对CSQ-8上的项目进行排名，然后使用标准说明对CSQ-8进行评级。第2组将对CSQ-8项目进行评分，然后提供排名。第3组将被问及一系列关于其治疗经验的开放式问题，然后使用标准说明完成CSQ-8的评级。第4组将首先根据标准说明完成CSQ-8，然后回答开放式问题。所有参与者还将完成症状测量（BSI- 18）和客户感知结果的测量。假设第1组和第3组的平均满意度评分显著低于第2组和第4组。也就是说，排名任务和开放式问题都将导致CSQ-8得分较低，分布更正态。此外，据预测，这种新的方法将导致满意度和标准变量（自我感知的症状和结果）之间更强的关联。提高客户满意度量表的有效性可能会给心理健康提供者更准确的信息，可用于程序修改的服务。这些修改可能会导致更好地满足客户的需求，并增加客户的治疗持久性。

The assessment of satisfaction with mental health services is important because it provides unique information pertaining to consumers' subjective experience of the treatment process. However, there are problems related to the measurement of client satisfaction. Clients generally report high levels of satisfaction with a variety of treatments modalities, and this leads to ceiling effects, a restriction of range, and non-normal distributions. Uniformly high levels of reported client satisfaction threatens the criterion-related and construct validity of the available instruments. The purpose of this research is to develop a methodology that can improve the assessment of client satisfaction, leading to more valid data. The effects of open-ended questions and ranking procedures on ratings provided on the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire-8 (CSQ-8) items will be assessed. Rankings and open- ended questions may facilitate greater processing of issues related to treatment, leading to greater discrimination among items when completing the satisfaction surveys. Mental health clients (N =180) will complete the CSQ-8 in one of four conditions. Group 1 will rank the items on the CSQ-8 in terms of importance and then provide rating on the CSQ-8 using standard instructions. Group 2 will rate CSQ-8 items and then provide rankings. Group 3 will be asked a series of open-ended questions regarding their treatment experience and then complete ratings of the CSQ-8 using standard instructions. Group 4 will first complete the CSQ-8 under standard instructions and then respond to the open-ended questions. All participants will also complete a symptom measure (BSI- 18) and a measure of client-perceived outcome. It is hypothesized that the mean satisfaction scores of Groups l and 3 will be significantly lower than those in Groups 2 and 4. That is, both the ranking task and the open- end questions will result in lower CSQ-8 scores and a more normal distribution. Additionally, it is predicted that this new methodology will result in a stronger association between satisfaction and criterion variables (self-perceived symptoms and outcome). Improving the validity of client satisfaction scales may give mental health providers more accurate information about services which can be used for program modifications. These modifications may result in better meeting the needs of clients and increasing client persistence in treatment.