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’.