Psychometric properties of the Consumer Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8) and the Helping Alliance Questionnaire (HAQ)

This study was based on data from a quality of care assessment survey conducted in 2011 in outpatient polyclinics of the Vaud Canton in Switzerland, comprising questionnaires completed by 568 children over the age of ten and 672 parents of children of all ages. The objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric qualities of the eight-item French versions for children of the Helping Alliance Questionnaire (HAQ) and the Consumer Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8) to allow formal validation and clinical application of these tools in the context of French-speaking child psychiatry. Methodology : Responses from children over the age of ten to the HAQ and CSQ-8 questionnaires were submitted to confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) for ordinal data to verify their good fit with the original long versions. Construct validity (correspondence between scores on the scales and other external criteria considered to evaluate similar concepts) of the child questionnaires was tested by Spearman's correlation with the parents' responses and their feeling of being reassured or in agreement with respect to the first visit, and with the perception of the help provided by individual and family interviews. Results : CFA showed an acceptable fit with the one-dimensional model of the original scales, both for the HAQ and the CSQ-8. Significant positive correlations of the scales with the parents' responses and with other convergent external criteria confirmed the good construct validity. Conclusions : These psychometric analyses provide a basis for the validation and clinical application of the abridged French versions of the HAQ and CSQ-8 in quality of care assessment in child psychiatry. //ABSTRACT IN FRENCH: Cette analyse utilise les données d'une enquête d'évaluation de la qualité des soins, menée en 2011 dans les policliniques ambulatoires du Canton de Vaud en Suisse, ayant récolté 568 questionnaires d'enfants de plus de dix ans et 672 de parents d'enfants de tout âge. Son objectif est d'étudier les qualités psychométriques des versions francophones pour enfants à huit items du Helping alliance questionnaire (HAQ) et du Client satisfaction questionnaire (CSQ8). Elle doit permettre d'ouvrir à une validation stricto sensu et à une utilisation clinique de ces outils dans un contexte pédopsychiatrique francophone. Méthodes : Les réponses des enfants de plus de dix ans aux échelles HAQ et CSQ8 sont soumises à une analyse factorielle confirmatoire (AFC) pour données ordi