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Developing a quality of care index for outpatient methadone treatment programmes
Author(s) -
Oyefeso Adenekan,
Clancy Carmel,
Ghodse Hamid
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of evaluation in clinical practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.737
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2753
pISSN - 1356-1294
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2753.1998.t01-1-00004.x
Subject(s) - methadone , medicine , methadone maintenance , scale (ratio) , hygiene , quality (philosophy) , index (typography) , family medicine , psychiatry , philosophy , physics , epistemology , pathology , quantum mechanics , world wide web , computer science
This article describes the development and evaluation of a psychometric instrument for assessing quality of care in outpatient methadone substitution therapy (MST) programmes. The instrument, termed the Quality of Care Index‐1 (QCI‐1), is a seven‐item scale evaluated in two studies. Its psychometric properties are consistently acceptable across both studies. The QCI‐1 reveals three distinct quality criteria relevant to the condition of the patients in methadone treatment. These are drug use hygiene, sharing of injecting equipment and partner's drug use status.