Validation and application of an instrument for measuring patient relatives' perception of quality of geriatric care.

To test and validate a questionnaire concerning patient relatives' perception of the quality of geriatric care. Three anonymous questionnaire studies. A community-based geriatric care organization and a university hospital in Sweden. Three hundred and eighteen relatives of patients within the geriatric care organization and 38 relatives of patients at the university hospital. A questionnaire composed of eight quality of care indices and an overall quality rating. Reliability and validity estimates were compared between the results from the three surveys. Internal reliability estimates for all indices were >0.65 and consistent over time. Inter-index correlations were >0.60 between certain indices, indicating some overlap. Second order factor analysis resulted in three distinct index groupings: personnel, relative's role, and care content. These three dimensions summarize relatives' perceptions of the quality of geriatric care. There is a need for a confidential patient relatives' questionnaire in geriatric care. The results revealed good questionnaire reliability and validity. The questionnaire needs to be tested in larger, independent samples in order to validate the indices further.