Clients' perspective on quality of audiology care: Development of the Consumer Quality Index (CQI) 'Audiology Care' for measuring client experiences.

OBJECTIVE Clients' perspective on the quality of audiology care has not been investigated thoroughly. Research has focused primarily on satisfaction with, and limitations of hearing aids. We developed a Consumer Quality Index (CQI) questionnaire 'Audiology Care' to systematically assess client experiences with audiology care. DESIGN The CQI Audiology Care was developed in three steps: (1) posing open-ended questions through e-mail (n = 14), (2) two small-scale surveys assessing psychometric properties of the questionnaire (n = 188) and importance of quality aspects (n = 118), and (3) a large-scale survey (n = 1793) assessing psychometric properties and discriminatory power of the questionnaire. STUDY SAMPLE People with complex hearing impairments and/or balance and communicative disorders who visited an audiology care centre during the past year. RESULTS Important quality aspects were translated into seven reliable scales: accommodation and facilities, employees' conduct and expertise, arrangement of appointments, waiting times, client participation and effectiveness of treatment. Client experiences differed among the participating centres concerning accommodation and facilities, arrangement of appointments, waiting times and client participation. CONCLUSION The CQI Audiology Care is a valid and reliable instrument to assess clients' experiences with audiology care. Future implementation will reveal whether results can be used to monitor and improve the quality of audiology care.