Strategies to Address the Methodological Challenges of Client-Satisfaction Research in Home Care

Abstract

While there is an abundance of recent client satisfaction research, methodological difficulties continue. This paper addresses common methodological challenges in securing useful feedback from elderly clients receiving home-care services. The methodological challenges include socially desirable response sets (SDKS), fear of reprisal, acquiescent response sets (ARS), and negative or positive wording of items. These contribute to an inability to capture salient dimensions of satisfaction and dissatisfaction important to home-care clients. Several data-collection strategies are proposed: guided interactive interviews, story-telling, scenarios, and rating of the importance of the dimensions of satisfaction and dissatisfaction identified from interview data. Each strategy is discussed using illustrations from a study on elderly clients' satisfaction with home-care services. Nurses and other health-care providers require credible feedback about client satisfaction in order to develop policy and to provide more appropriate and effective services to home-care clients.