Questionnaire tools
The Short Form Health Survey (SF-12), a widely used instrument for assessing general health and outcomes, was used to measure health related quality of life (HRQoL). The SF-12 measures physical and mental health using 12 questions. Summary scores for the physical component summary (PCS) and the mental component summary (MCS) were collated according to published guidelines19. A low score represents a poorer quality of physical or mental health.
The CORE-OM is a 34 question validated self-reported questionnaire, using a five-point scale that ranges from ‘not at all’ to ‘most of/all the time’20. Four dimensions are captured, including: subjective wellbeing, problems and symptoms, life functioning and risk/harm. Mean and total scores were calculated as per developer recommendations to quantify the level of psychological global distress. A higher score represents a higher level of health and less global distress in the dimensions of wellbeing, problems and symptoms, and life functioning. A high score in the “risk/harm” domain represents a higher level of psychological distress.
The QPP is a 24-question model for assessing the patient’s perception and experience of the quality of care in a healthcare environment21. The model consists of four dimensions: medical-technical competence of the healthcare provider, physical-technical conditions of the healthcare organization, degree of identity-orientation in the attitudes and actions of the caregivers and the socio-cultural atmosphere of the healthcare organization. Questions were answered using a Likert scale (1-4) including: ‘do not agree at all’, ‘slightly agree’, ‘mostly agree’ and ‘completely agree’.