Validity of a questionnaire measuring the world health organization concept of health system responsiveness with respect to perinatal services in the Dutch obstetric care system.

Publisher: BioMed Central Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 101088677 Publication Model: Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1472-6963 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 14726963 NLM ISO Abbreviation: BMC Health Serv Res Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: London : BioMed Central, [2001-

Perinatal Care* ; World Health Organization*; Obstetrics/*organization & administration ; Surveys and Questionnaires/*standards; Adult ; Ethnicity ; Female ; Humans ; Interviews as Topic ; Netherlands ; Parturition ; Pregnancy ; Psychometrics ; Quality of Health Care ; Reproducibility of Results ; Young Adult

Background: The concept of responsiveness, introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO), addresses non-clinical aspects of health service quality that are relevant regardless of provider, country, health system or health condition. Responsiveness refers to "aspects related to the way individuals are treated and the environment in which they are treated" during health system interactions. This paper assesses the psychometric properties of a newly developed responsiveness questionnaire dedicated to evaluating maternal experiences of perinatal care services, called the Responsiveness in Perinatal and Obstetric Health Care Questionnaire (ReproQ), using the eight-domain WHO concept.
Methods: The ReproQ was developed between October 2009 and February 2010 by adapting the WHO Responsiveness Questionnaire items to the perinatal care context. The psychometric properties of feasibility, construct validity, and discriminative validity were empirically assessed in a sample of Dutch women two weeks post partum.
Results: A total of 171 women consented to participation. Feasibility: the interviews lasted between 20 and 40 minutes and the overall missing rate was 8%. Construct validity: mean Cronbach's alphas for the antenatal, birth and postpartum phase were: 0.73 (range 0.57-0.82), 0.84 (range 0.66-0.92), and 0.87 (range 0.62-0.95) respectively. The item-own scale correlations within all phases were considerably higher than most of the item-other scale correlations. Within the antenatal care, birth care and post partum phases, the eight factors explained 69%, 69%, and 76% of variance respectively. Discriminative validity: overall responsiveness mean sum scores were higher for women whose children were not admitted. This confirmed the hypothesis that dissatisfaction with health outcomes is transferred to their judgement on responsiveness of the perinatal services.
Conclusions: The ReproQ interview-based questionnaire demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties to describe the quality of perinatal care in the Netherlands, with the potential to discriminate between different levels of quality of care. In view of the relatively small sample, further testing and research is recommended.

Health Aff (Millwood). 2001 May-Jun;20(3):21-4. (PMID: 11585169)
Med Care. 1994 Dec;32(12):1216-31. (PMID: 7967860)
Age Ageing. 2000 Mar;29(2):173-8. (PMID: 10791453)
Eval Program Plann. 1983;6(3-4):247-63. (PMID: 10267253)
BMC Health Serv Res. 2007;7:109. (PMID: 17626631)
Issue Brief Cent Stud Health Syst Change. 1999 Feb;(18):1-4. (PMID: 10558398)
Soc Sci Med. 1998 Nov;47(10):1573-88. (PMID: 9823053)
BMJ. 2003 Apr 19;326(7394):877-9. (PMID: 12702627)
Birth. 1998 Mar;25(1):19-24. (PMID: 9534501)
Sociol Health Illn. 2009 Apr;31(3):309-24. (PMID: 19055589)
Int J Qual Health Care. 2002 Oct;14(5):353-8. (PMID: 12389801)
Health Aff (Millwood). 2001 May-Jun;20(3):10-20. (PMID: 11585157)
Qual Manag Health Care. 1993 Fall;2(1):31-8. (PMID: 10131018)
J Epidemiol Community Health. 2009 Sep;63(9):761-5. (PMID: 19416928)
Soc Sci Med. 1993 Jun;36(11):1397-405. (PMID: 8511628)
Public Opin Q. 2000 Winter;64(4):464-94. (PMID: 11171027)
Soc Sci Med. 1997 Dec;45(12):1829-43. (PMID: 9447632)
J Adv Nurs. 2005 Dec;52(6):672-81. (PMID: 16313380)
Soc Sci Med. 2000 Dec;51(11):1611-25. (PMID: 11072882)
Soc Sci Med. 1984;19(2):163-6. (PMID: 6474232)
Soc Sci Med. 1994 Sep;39(6):767-80. (PMID: 7973873)
Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol. 2014 Mar;174:35-40. (PMID: 24332094)
Br J Gen Pract. 2011 Oct;61(591):e628-37. (PMID: 22152835)
Qual Life Res. 2007 Sep;16(7):1107-25. (PMID: 17624815)
J Clin Epidemiol. 1998 Nov;51(11):1149-58. (PMID: 9817132)
Health Serv Res. 2003 Dec;38(6 Pt 1):1509-27. (PMID: 14727785)
BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2009;9:18. (PMID: 19426525)
Qual Health Care. 2001 Mar;10(1):17-22. (PMID: 11239139)

Date Created: 20141204 Date Completed: 20160411 Latest Revision: 20211203

20240628

PMC4265356

10.1186/s12913-014-0622-1

25465053