Showing papers by "Sarah Grogan published in 1995"

Development of a questionnaire to measure patients' satisfaction with general practitioners' services.

Abstract: BACKGROUND. It is now a requirement that patients' satisfaction with the services obtained from their general practitioner should be surveyed. AIM. The aim of the study was to produce a reliable and valid multidimensional patient satisfaction questionnaire that could be used in general practice. METHOD. Items were originally derived from patients' responses to open-ended questions. The resulting 148-item Likert-scale questionnaire was completed by 1193 patients. General satisfaction items were removed from the set, and responses to remaining items underwent factor analysis. Subscales were produced from items representing each factor. Reliability and validity of each subscale were examined. RESULTS. Five subscales with a total of 40 items resulted from the factor analysis: doctors, access, nurses, appointments and facilities. Each subscale was internally reliable (Cronbach's alpha coefficient between 0.73 and 0.95), and initial tests of validity suggested that all subscales were valid. CONCLUSION. The study has resulted in a 40-item scale that has been found to be reliable and valid after initial tests. Further work to test the reliability and validity of the final version of the patient satisfaction questionnaire is described.

Which cognitive abilities at age four are the best predictors of reading ability at age seven

Abstract: A longitudinal study investigated the relationship between cognitive abilities at age four and reading at age seven. Reading ability was significantly positively correlated with knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondence, visual memory, auditory sequential memory, and Draw-a-man scores (intelligence). Once age (20ro) and intelligence (12%) were partialled out, auditory sequential memory scores at age four accounted for 13% of the variance in reading scores with visual sequential memory scores predicting a further 5%. Implications of results are discussed. RESUME Quelles sont, a quatre ans, les competnces cognitives qui predisent le mieux les competences en lecture ba l'âge de sept ans? L'etude rapportee ici est une etude multivariee consacree au pouvoir predictif relatif de chacune des insuffisances cognitives reconnues comme predisant les competences de lecture ulterieures. On a teste un grand nombre de competences en debut de scolarite, l'intelligence etant controlee, et les donnees ont ete analysees par regression multiple pour examiner l'importance relative de chaque competence, isolement et en combinaison, comme predicteur des competences de lecture ulterieures. On a teste en debut de scolarite 50 enf ants de quatre ans dans une ecole primaire des West Midlands avec une batterie de tests psychometriques provenant tous de l'Index Aston (LDA, 1982), et on a testea nouveau ces enfants a l'âge de sept ans avec le Test de Lecture Primaire du NFER. Les resultats en lecture a l'âge de sept ans ont une correlation significative avec les resultats au Dessin du bonhomme (intelligence; r = 0.37; df=49; p<0.01), avec la denomination de lettres (majuscules, r = 0.49; df=49; p<0.001; minuscules r = 0.40; df=49; p<0.01), avec la memoire visuelle (orientation) (r = 0.37; df=49; p <0.01), avec la memoire visuelle (sequentielle) (r = 0.43; df=49; p <0.001), et avec la memoire auditive sequentielle (r = 0.47; df = 49; p <0.001). L'analyse de regression multiple a montre que l'intelligence (resultats au Dessin du bonhomme) et l'âge rendent compte conjointement de 14% de la variance des resultats en lecture. On a effectue alors une analyse de regression pas a pas pour determiner quelles competences cognitives (s'il en est) rendaient compte de la variance residuelle. La memoire auditive sequentielle rend compte de 13Vo de la variance et la memoire visuelle sequentielle de 5% supplementaires. Aucune autre variable ne predit un montant significatif de la variabilite des resultats obtenus en lecture. Ces resultats suggerent que des difficultes en memoire verbale a court terme en debut de scolarite peuvent conduire a des difficultes ulterieures en lecture. II est evident que beaucoup de facteurs pesent sur le developpement de la lecture de l'enfant, et que la memoire verbale a court terme n'est qu'un de ces facteurs, mais il parait bien etre un facteur significatif, et meriter des etudes ulterieures. Un entraine-ment en debut de scolarite des techniques de memoire verbale a court terme pourrait permettre de prevenir des problemes de lecture ulterieurs lors de la scolarite de l'enfant.