Applications and Examples

How Researchers Can Use This Survey Tool

The Primary Care Satisfaction Survey for Women (PCSSW) is the first survey tool designed to measure adult women's satisfaction with their primary care experiences.

The PCSSW contains three scales:

  • Communication
  • Administration and Office Procedures
  • Care Coordination and Comprehensiveness

The first two scales relate to a specific visit; the third scale relates to health care received in the past 12 months. The scales demonstrate strong psychometric properties (reliability and validity), have structures that are invariant across subgroups of women defined by age and race/ethnicity, and offer greater explanatory power compared to a generic satisfaction measure.

The scales also relate to expectations for health care and to overall ratings of health care quality. The 24-item PCSSW may be self-administered or conducted by telephone and may be used in studies to evaluate or improve the quality of primary care for women.

Benchmarks for the PCSSW from the Centers of Excellence in Women's Health are available from the WHQA.

The Primary Care Services Utilization Tool (PCSUT) assesses quality of care as:

  • Receipt of age-appropriate clinical preventive services generally recommended for women by such groups as the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
  • Satisfaction with primary healthcare, using instruments developed for the National Centers of Excellence (CoE) in Women's Health Program

This tool allows researchers to collect data on basic care services for women with benchmark comparisons available from two large survey samples. A coding form is available to replicate coding schema used in the Centers of Excellence in Women's Health project.

How Clinicians and Healthcare Providers Can Use This Survey Tool

The Primary Care Satisfaction Survey for Women (PCSSW) is an important new approach for measuring women's satisfaction levels with their primary care in both traditional and women-specific health settings. It adds sensitivity to satisfaction measurements when evaluating the quality of primary care and quality improvement programs in your clinic.

Frequently Asked Questions