The TAPS Project. 9: The Reliability of the Patient Attitude Questionnaire

Abstract

The development of the hospital and community versions of the Patient Attitude Questionnaire is described. The instrument rates the attitudes of psychiatric patients towards their treatment settings and staff, and is framed specifically to assess attitudinal change during the transfer of patients from hospital. For the items rated using the kappa coefficient of agreement, the mean test-retest reliability value was 0.51, and the average inter-rater value was 0.82. This study shows that long-term psychiatric patients are able to give clear and consistent views about their living arrangements - views that should be sought and respected by staff.

Is deinstitutionalization working in our community?

“…Two key instruments used in the study were the Patient Attitude Questionnaire (PAQ) (Thornicroft et al . 1993) and the Manchester Short Assessment for the Quality of Life (MANSA) (Priebe et al .…”

Long-stay patients discharged from psychiatric hospitals

“…Problems with the patients' physical health and treatments given were recorded with the Physical Health Index (PHI) from information in the case notes and from interviews with the care staff. Patients' attitudes to the care received and to the care environment were ascertained with the Patient Attitude Questionnaire (PAQ) (Thornicroft et al , 1993). The degree of restrictiveness of the patients' living situation was measured with the Environmental Index (EI) while the extent and quality of their social networks were assessed with the Social Network Schedule (SNS, Leff et al , 1990).…”

Perceived need for mental health care, findings from the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Well-being

“…Face validity was addressed by sampling the views of all design group participants about instrument content and design, and reviewing related studies and instruments (e.g. Lesage et al 1991 ;Thornicroft et al 1993 ;Phelan et al 1995 ;Bebbington et al 1996).…”