General practitioners' evaluation of community psychiatric services: responsiveness to change of the General Practitioner Experiences Questionnaire (GPEQ)

摘要

Background Instruments have been developed to assess professional views of the quality of care but have rarely been tested for responsiveness to change. The objective of this study was to test the responsiveness of the General Practitioner Experiences Questionnaire (GPEQ) for the measurement of Community Mental Health Centres in Norway. Methods National surveys were conducted in Norway in 2006 (n = 2,415) and 2008 (n = 2,209) to measure general practitioners' evaluation of community mental health centres. GPs evaluated the centres by means of a postal questionnaire, consisting of questions focused on centre quality and cooperation with GPs. As part of the national surveys 75 GPs in 2006 and 66 GPs in 2008 evaluated Hamar community mental health centre. Between the surveys, several quality improvement initiatives were implemented which were directed at cooperation with and guidance for GPs in Stange municipality, one of eight municipalities in Hamar centre catchment area. The main outcome measures were changes in GPEQ scores from 2006 to 2008 for GPs evaluating Hamar community mental health centre from Stange municipality, and changes in scores for GPs in the other seven municipalities and nationally which were assessed for statistical significance. Results GPs in Stange municipality rated Hamar community mental health centre significantly better on the guidance scale in 2008 than in 2006; on a 0-100 scale where 100 represents the best possible experiences the score was 26.5 in 2006 and 58.3 in 2008 (p Conclusions Following the implementation of an initiative designed to enhance service quality, the GPEQ identified expected changes in the guidance scale for the intervention group, indicating that the instrument is responsive to change. The worsening of services for GPs in the control group evaluating Hamar centre warrants further study.