Patient perception of the anesthetic act: Development of a brief survey in Spanish to measure satisfaction

Abstract

Introduction: Survey development represents a complex process that requires verification of its usefulness before its application. At an international level, there are few instruments to measure the perception of anaesthetic care in elective surgeries, without forgetting that most of them were created in English; therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a brief survey on anaesthetic care as an indicator of quality in the Mexican population. Material and methods: This is a qualitative study that involves the construction phase of a survey in which a review of the international and local literature of the instruments to measure satisfaction in anesthesiology was carried out. Subsequently, informal random interviews were conducted with 82 patients on the most sensitive issues associated with the anaesthetic act for the construction of items. Results: The proposal consists of 16 items divided into three sections corresponding to the three basic anaesthetic evaluations in elective surgery and that explore five domains: Communication, autonomy, timely care, adequate treatment, and satisfaction. Conclusions: The proposal made in this project is a potential instrument that could reflect the perceived quality of anaesthetic care in our population, so to strengthen this process it will be necessary to continue with their respective validations.