Assessing Patient Satisfaction with Medication: A Scale Validation Study

The study considers a four-construct model towards validating the factors of overall patient satisfaction with medication.

A four-factor patient satisfaction model has been tested for reliability and validity through confirmatory factor-analysis procedures. A structured questionnaire, incorporating variables identified from the literature, has been used as survey instrument for the study. Final respondent sample size was 319 patients who were on medication for a minimum duration of 10 days.

An exploratory factor analysis of considered items revealed four factors (Eigenvalues > 1) explaining 75% of the total variance, namely effectiveness (3 items, 21%, Cronbach Alpha = 0.859), side effects (4 items, 19%, Cronbach Alpha = 0.816), convenience (3 items, 18%, Cronbach Alpha = 0.891) and global satisfaction (3 items, 18%, Cronbach Alpha = 0.910).

Effectiveness, side effects, convenience and global satisfaction were found to be reliable and valid factors determining satisfaction with medication among patients in India.

Various limitations with respect to study design and sample selection may have impacted the psychometric parameter estimates and the generalisability of results: (1) Validation on the larger sample size could have made more generalised conclusion and (2) the survey of the respondent should be ideally taken pre-and post-medication to assess the satisfaction with medication exhaustively.

There is lack of focused research on patient satisfaction and its underlying determinants in the emerging market settings. The present study is an attempt to fill the existing research gap.