The construction and validation of a scale for consumer satisfaction of residential care in Hong Kong

Abstract

Consumer satisfaction has been adopted by many service industries as an outcome measure of service quality. This paper reports and discusses the construction and validation of a set of quality indicators that have been used to measure the domains of satisfaction among residents of old age homes in Hong Kong. The quality indicators were firstly constructed through residents' focus group discussions in Hong Kong and through reference to theories of social gerontology. A team of multi-disciplinary professionals, including social workers, nurses and social gerontology researchers, then reviewed the indicators. Residents' views and reactions to the indicators were also solicited through face-to-face interviews with 20 residents. The 55-item scale was then validated and modified to 35 items after a pilot study of 98 residents. Finally, the indicators were used in a study of 405 residents selected by stratified random sampling. A 28-item scale representing nine quality indicators for the residential home service was finally validated. The paper concludes with recommendations on the use of this set of quality indicators to promote service quality in residential care.