To Whom do You Refer? A Referrer Satisfaction Study

Objective: To report the development of a referrer satisfaction measure. Method: Urban and rural general practitioners, physicians, neurologists, as well as obstetricians and gynaecologists rated 36 items in terms of their judged importance to the respondent's satisfaction with a psychiatric service. Responses of the whole sample and component practitioner sub-groups were ranked. Results: We established a high level of agreement across the several subgroups suggesting that we had identified general rather than idiosyncratic variables contributing to referrer satisfaction. Referrers prioritised as most important the immediacy of initial appointment, the psychiatrist reporting at the beginning and end of any treatment course, and ready verbal communication between the referrer and the psychiatrist. Items accorded low priority were the psychiatrist's billing arrangements, the psychiatrist being ‘perfect’ (in either having a high ‘cure’ rate or making a definitive diagnosis initially), or the psychiatrist taking complete responsibility for difficult patients. A principal components analysis identified four factors underpinning the item set, and we again established that scores on these factors were not influenced by the particular referrer sub-group. Conclusions: Such findings suggest that only minor modifications would need to be made to the item set in developing a referrer satisfaction measure for quality assurance activities.