To Örebro University

AIM: The aim of the present study is to evaluate the psychometric properties and factor structure of the Quality in Psychiatric Care-Outpatient Staff (QPC-OPS) instrument and briefly describe the staff's views on the quality of care provided in general outpatient clinics as well as demographic and clinical factors associated with quality of care.

METHOD: The study employed a cross-sectional design to conduct a psychometric evaluation and survey of staff perspectives. A sample of 143 permanently employed members of staff in multiprofessional teams at 15 outpatient clinics in Sweden completed the QPC-OPS, which consists of 30 items covering eight dimensions of quality of care.

RESULTS: The QPC-OPS exhibited excellent psychometric properties, with a total alpha coefficient of 0.94, a test-retest reliability of 0.96 and a goodness-of-fit measure for the proposed model with a RMSEA value of 0.048. The staff's rating was generally high. Ratings were highest for Encounter and lowest for Accessibility. Staff who rated their own mental health as higher rated quality of care higher in most of the dimensions.

CONCLUSION: The Swedish QPC-OPS showed excellent psychometric properties and is a useful, inexpensive and simple way to evaluate the quality of care in outpatient care and contributes to health care improvement in the field of psychiatric care. The low quality of the dimension of Accessibility indicates an important area for improvement.