Measuring the Perceived Importance of Indicators of the Quality of Social Care Services

ABSTRACT

Purpose

We aimed to develop and validate an instrument measuring perceived importance of indicators of the quality of social care services in different groups of stakeholders.

Method

671 respondents (249 representatives of public administration, 217 social service providers and 205 service users) completed a 40-item questionnaire developed on the basis of relevant quality assessment models.

Results

Item analysis was carried out and it was found that data were suitable for further analysis and no item removal was needed. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed 5-factor solution which was subsequently affirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. Scales derived from EFA exhibited high internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.83 to 0.95.

Discussion and Conclusion

The study offers a novel approach to the development of a measure of the quality of social care service based on separate investigation of perceived importance and service satisfaction. Hence, it has relevance for ongoing scientific debate on importance weighting in service satisfaction research.

KEYWORDS:

• Social care
• service quality
• quality measurement
• perceived importance
• importance weighting

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data are available on request at the corresponding author of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.