The GPs' Experiences Questionnaire (GPEQ): reliability and validity following a national survey to assess GPs' views of district psychiatric services

BACKGROUND: The measurement of patient and professional views of quality are important components in the evaluation of health care delivery. OBJECTIVE: To describe the development and evaluation of the GPs' Experiences Questionnaire (GPEQ) for assessing the quality of community mental health clinics in Norway. METHODS: Design: Literature review, GP interviews, pre-testing of questionnaire items and a cross-sectional national survey. Setting: Postal survey of GPs in Norway evaluating 73 community mental health clinics in the five health regions in Norway during spring of 2006. Subjects: Three thousand four hundred and sixty-three GPs were sent a postal questionnaire with the GPEQ and were asked to assess their community mental health clinic responsible for general adult psychiatric services. RESULTS: Two thousand one hundred and thirty (61.5%) GPs returned a completed questionnaire. Low levels of missing data suggest that the questionnaire is acceptable. Factor analysis identified five scales: workforce situation (four items), discharge letter (three items), competence (four items), guidance (three items) and emergency situations (two items). All scales met the criterion of 0.7 for Cronbach's alpha and test-retest correlations were 0.72-0.87. The results of validity testing were as hypothesized with scale scores significantly related to knowledge of the community mental health clinic, overall satisfaction, negative experiences with the clinic, waiting time and acceptance of referrals. CONCLUSIONS: The GPEQ is a self-administered questionnaire that includes the most important aspects of the GPs' experience of quality at community mental health clinics. All scales have good evidence for internal consistency, test-retest reliability and validity.