Developing an Instrument for a State-Wide Palliative Care Satisfaction Survey in Australia.

In the State of Victoria, Australia, there was an identified need for a validated instrument to measure the satisfaction of people receiving palliative care. The process of gaining sector-wide cooperation to collect satisfaction data across many settings and models of care had been a challenge for many years. This was finally achieved in 2007, particularly when driven by the requirement that funding was contingent on meeting the Victorian Government's key performance indicators in relation to satisfaction. What has emerged is the ability to report to government and the sector, to compare and contrast service satisfaction and these data being used to enable improved care provision. This paper outlines the process of developing and validating the Palliative Care Satisfaction Instrument (VPCSI). Continued annual use of the instrument enables ongoing collection of benchmark data for subgroups, confirmation of core components and other psychometric consolidation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]