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，客户满意度的测量存在一些问题。客户通常报告对各种治疗方式的高满意度，这导致天花板效应，范围限制和非正态分布。一致的高水平的报告客户满意度威胁到标准相关的和构建有效的可用工具。本研究的目的是开发一种方法，可以提高客户满意度的评估，导致更有效的数据。将评估开放式问题和排序程序对客户满意度问卷-8 （CSQ-8）项目所提供评级的影响。排名和开放式问题可能有助于处理更多与待遇有关的问题，导致在完成满意度调查时，项目之间存在更大的歧视。心理健康来访者（N =180）将在四种情况下完成CSQ-8。第一组将根据重要性对CSQ-8上的题目进行排序，然后使用标准说明对CSQ-8进行评分。第二组将对CSQ-8项目进行评分，然后给出排名。第三组将被问及一系列关于他们治疗经历的开放式问题，然后使用标准说明完成CSQ-8评分。第4组将在标准指导下完成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）和客户感知结果测量。假设第1组和第3组的平均满意度得分显著低于第2组和第4组。也就是说，排名任务和开放式问题都会导致CSQ-8得分较低，并且更符合正态分布。此外，预计这种新方法将导致满意度和标准变量（自我感知的症状和结果）之间的更强关联。提高客户满意度量表的有效性可以为心理健康提供者提供更准确的服务信息，这些信息可用于方案修改。这些修改可以更好地满足来访者的需求，增加来访者对治疗的坚持。

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.