Development and Psychometric Assessment of the Sub-scales of the Ontario Perception of Care tool for Mental Health and Addictions (OPOC-MHA)

Brian Rush, Emeritus Scientist, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto Canada, M5S 2S1Follow
Karen Urbanoski, Associate professor in Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, V8P 5C2Follow

ORCID

Brian Rush:

Abstract

Historically, the tools designed to measure of ``patient satisfaction'' or ``perception of care'' have been developed and evolved separately for the mental health and substance use health sectors. This presents challenges for implementation and usefulness of the results for quality improvement and evaluation given recent efforts aimed at more integrated services and systems. The objective of this study was to psychometrically evaluate eight domain-specific sub-scales of a perception-of-care tool developed specifically for mental health, substance use and/or concurrent disorder services - the OPOC-MHA. The development and process for widescale implementation of the OPOC-MHA has resulted in a large provincial dataset used for the present analysis; the dataset containing results of 70476 tool administrations as of May 2021. Within sub-scales, items showed very good to excellent internal consistency with values for Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.84 to 0.92. Further, average sub-scale scores were consistently lower for those who had left treatment early and those in the ``other'' category, relative to those who had completed or were still in treatment; thereby supporting construct validity. Results suggest that it is statistically defensible to use the domain-specific sub-scale scores of the OPOC-MHA in evaluation and quality improvement efforts.

Recommended Citation

Rush B, Urbanoski K. Development and Psychometric Assessment of the Sub-scales of the Ontario Perception of Care tool for Mental Health and Addictions (OPOC-MHA). Patient Experience Journal. 2026; 13(1):177-186. doi: 10.35680/2372-0247.2078.