The Acute Hospital Foodservice Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire: The Development of a Valid and Reliable Tool to Measure Patient Satisfaction With Acute Care Hospital Foodservices

Abstract

The objective of this study was to design a valid and reliable questionnaire to measure patient satisfaction with acute care hospital foodservices. The Acute Care Hospital Foodservice Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 2347 acute care hospital inpatients and postdischarge patients from two public hospitals (total 1050 beds) and one 360‐bed private hospital in Queensland, Australia. A factor analysis and evaluation of Cronbach's alpha revealed that the final questionnaire contained 16 statements relating to four factors describing food quality (α = 0.89), meal service quality (α = 0.72), staff/service issues (α = 0.65) and the physical environment (α = 0.61). Questions requesting demographic data were included. Results indicated that the survey is an accurate, reliable measure of patient foodservice satisfaction. It differentiates the foodservice into four factors and collects detailed information about foodservice attributes within these factors. This allows the application of systematic measures to improve foodservice quality and provides a tool for the continuous assessment of foodservice quality and measurement of changes in patient foodservice satisfaction over time in a variety of acute care settings.

Patients’ evaluation of hospital foodservice quality in Italy: what do patients really value?

“…In addition, the item 'I am satisfied with meal distribution time', which we introduced in the questionnaire, became part of the MSQ factor. Our questionnaire response rate was higher than those of other international studies (17,24,34) . Regarding use of the ACHFPSQ in the Italian context, we think that the questionnaire was well received by patients; this is also confirmed by the moderate/good response rate (72 %) compared with other studies (15,17,24,34) .…”

“…Since to our knowledge the present study is one of the first conducted in an Italian hospital using the ACHFPSQ, we have to consider two aspects in benchmarking our results with similar European studies: (i) none of the statements refer to culinary tradition, which is recognized as an Italian prerogative; and (ii) our sample was bigger than those of other studies (17,24,34,35) and this may increase the significance of our findings. The first point may raise the satisfaction threshold slightly, because perceived food quality was lower than in other European countries.…”

A Systematic Review of Hospital Foodservice Patient Satisfaction Studies

“…3,14,17,20,25 Only one study explored food access in hospital, but it also gave information about patient food satisfaction. 13 Four studies focused on the validation of data collection instruments (questionnaire), 4,13,26,27 and two of these also gave information about patient food satisfaction. 4,13 Setting…”

What do patients value in the hospital meal experience?

“…The authors note that food quality was the best predictor of patient 22 satisfaction, followed by customization and attitude of the staff who deliver menus. An Australian 23 group led by Capra (Wright et al 2003;Capra et al, 2005) developed an Acute Care Hospital 24…”