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The purpose of this paper is to describe and compare nurses’ and healthcare assistants’ oral care quality perceptions, including perceived reality (PR) and subjective importance (SI), to identify improvement areas in intensive care and short-term care, and to explore potential nursing satisfaction predictors regarding oral care.

Swedish staff, 154 within intensive care and 278 within short-term care responded to a modified quality of care from a patient perspective questionnaire. Descriptive and analytical statistics were used.

Staff scored oral care quality both high and low in relation to PR and SI. Improvement areas were identified, despite high satisfaction values regarding oral care. Setting, SI and PR explained 51.5 percent of the variance in staff satisfaction regarding oral care quality.

Quality improvements could guide oral care development.

This study describes oral care by comparing nurse perceptions of how important they perceive different oral care aspects and to what extent these oral care aspects are performed.

The aim is to describe patients' care quality perceptions and satisfaction and to explore potential patient satisfaction predictors as person‐related conditions, external objective care conditions and patients' perception of actual care received (“PR”) in relation to a theoretical model.

A cross‐sectional design was used. Data were collected using one questionnaire combining questions from four instruments: Quality from patients' perspective; Sense of coherence; Big five personality trait; and Emotional stress reaction questionnaire (ESRQ), together with questions from previous research. In total, 528 patients (83.7 per cent response rate) from eight medical, three surgical and one medical/surgical ward in five Norwegian hospitals participated. Answers from 373 respondents with complete ESRQ questionnaires were analysed. Sequential multiple regression analysis with ESRQ as dependent variable was run in three steps: person‐related conditions, external objective care conditions, and PR (p < 0.05).

Step 1 (person‐related conditions) explained 51.7 per cent of the ESRQ variance. Step 2 (external objective care conditions) explained an additional 2.4 per cent. Step 3 (PR) gave no significant additional explanation (0.05 per cent). Steps 1 and 2 contributed statistical significance to the model. Patients rated both quality‐of‐care and satisfaction highly.

The paper shows that the theoretical model using an emotion‐oriented approach to assess patient satisfaction can explain 54 per cent of patient satisfaction in a statistically significant manner.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between patients' service quality perceptions and their attitudes towards visiting the same healthcare provider again.

All patients visiting one of 121 (public) primary healthcare centres in a Swedish region between January and March 2005, who were 16 years or older and capable of communicating, were invited to participate. Responses were obtained from 22,170 patients (75 per cent response rate). Patients evaluated service quality using the “Quality from the Patient's Perspective” (QPP; modified short version) questionnaire. Potentially confounding variables such as age, sex, educational level, illness and self‐reported health condition were also assessed. Data were analysed through generalised linear mixed effects model analysis and multiple regression analysis respectively, using both individual‐ and organisational‐level (primary healthcare centre) data.

Approximately 10 per cent hesitated about continuing to visit the same care provider. Favourable service quality evaluations made a statistically significant contribution to the odds of reporting no hesitation about re‐visiting the same primary healthcare centre.

Patients' care experiences appear to have an effect on post‐care‐episode attitudes (and possibly behaviours). It is suggested that effects on care‐proximal aspects, such as hesitation about visiting the same provider again, could be an important link to more distal phenomena such as general health status.

To compare patients’ views on quality of care in different countries using a theory‐based instrument, while at the same time controlling for the following potential confounders: type of care system (private vs public), type of care (kind of health problem), gender, age, and subjective wellbeing.

Patients capable of communicating in wards (medical and surgical departments) and day surgery departments in England, France, Norway, and Sweden were recruited consecutively, to participate in a programme run by the health‐care company Capio. Ward patients: England (n =1,236), France (n =1,051), Norway (n =226), and Sweden (n =428). Day surgery patients: England (n =887), France (n =544), Norway (n =101), and Sweden (n =742). Average response rate across settings: approximately 75 per cent. Patients evaluated the quality of the care they actually received and the subjective importance they ascribed to different aspects of care. The questionnaire “Quality from the patient's perspective” (QPP) was used (modified short version).

Cross‐national comparisons were made within each of the two care contexts (wards and day surgery) separately for men and women. Quality of care evaluations were adjusted for age and subjective wellbeing. English and French patients scored significantly higher than Norwegian and Swedish on both kinds of ratings (perceived reality and subjective importance), in both kinds of care contexts, and in both sexes.

Cross‐national comparisons of patients’ views on care can give meaningful guidance for practitioners only if they are context‐specific and if well‐known confounders are controlled for.

The aim of the paper is to compare the computer administration method (touch‐screen) with the original paper‐and‐pen approach when measuring patients' perceptions of care quality.

The study group consisted of 199 patients who responded to touch‐screen and 219 who responded to paper‐and‐pen questionnaires, receiving care between January and March 2003 at two out‐patient clinics in one county in Sweden. The response rate was 75 per cent. A modified version of the quality from the patient's perspective questionnaire was used.

Two main findings emerged: first, both methods yielded almost identical results in quality of care ratings, and second, the touch‐screen method was perceived to be easier to use and to take less time to complete.

The paper shows that both methods are acceptable, but the touch‐screen method appears to be preferred by patients.

The aim of this study is to describe how Swedish women, planned for vaginal birth, perceive the quality of intrapartal care that they receive and the subjective importance they ascribe to their care.

The study was nested within a Swedish national survey of intrapartal care. The women whose care was investigated were invited to participate in the current study by the midwife who attended the birth. A total of 1,173 women agreed to answer a questionnaire about “quality of general care” and “quality of specific intrapartal care” at two months postpartum. The questions were posed in two ways, the perceived reality (PR) of care given and the subjective importance (SI) the women ascribed to this care.

A total of 739 women (63 percent) returned their questionnaires. Scores for PR and SI for “quality of general care“ were in the main high (PR range 2.98‐3.81; SI range 2.85‐3.85, out of a possible 4) and also for “quality of specific intrapartal care” (PR range 3.15‐3.86; SI range 3.23‐3.86, out of a possible 4). A total of 12 items showed statistically significantly higher scores for SI than for PR. Of the women, 81 percent agreed fully or mostly that the birth of their child was a positive experience.

The way in which women answer questions about intrapartal care reflects the way in which the questions are posed. This study therefore has asked not only how care was perceived but also what importance individual women ascribed to different areas of their care. The questionnaire used in this study allows identification of areas where “what is, could be better”.

The paper's purpose is to develop a care‐context adapted version of the emotional stress reaction questionnaire (ESRQ), which is based on the cognitive‐phenomenological writings of Lazarus, and, using this instrument, to explore the relationship between quality of care from a patient perspective and patient satisfaction while taking key antecedent conditions into account.

Data were collected from 624 patients at 16 Swedish out‐patient clinics (75 per cent response rate). Patients responded to the ERSQ, the quality from the patient's perspective questionnaire (QPP), the single‐item measures of personality (SIMP), and questions related to the outcome of the visit. Dimensionality of the ESRQ was analysed using exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. The relationship between the theoretical concepts was explored with logistic regression analysis.

A care‐context adapted version of the ESRQ was developed with meaningful factors and satisfactory psychometric properties. Care‐episode specific appraisal and coping processes covaried as predicted with emotional responses. The theoretical model was partly confirmed when assessed against two outcome criteria: intention to follow the doctor's advice and hesitation to visit the same out‐patient clinic again.

The scales used are easy to administer and interpret.

The suggested theoretical model of the relationship between quality of care from a patient perspective and patient satisfaction is new, as is the emotion‐oriented approach to assessing patient satisfaction.

Swedish healthcare has undergone continuous development over several decades. Today, legal responsibility is shared on the local and regional levels, i.e. between municipalities and county councils. The purpose of the present study is to gain a deeper understanding of boundary spanning roles and strategies involved in municipal and county council collaboration. A grounded theory approach was used. Fifteen informants from several Swedish health care authorities were interviewed. A tension exists between preserving boundary strategies that stifle collaboration and boundary spanning strategies that facilitate it. The way boundary spanners manage their role is assumed to influence the centre of gravity for this tension and thus the combination of favourable boundary spanning strategies and favourable boundary spanning roles is one way of getting the current form of collaboration to work.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate an organizationally oriented, patient-focused care (PFC) model's effects on care quality and work climate.

The study has a before-after (PFC implementation) design. The sample included 1,474 patients and 458 healthcare providers in six participating wards before and after PFC implementation, plus five additional randomly chosen wards, which only featured in the post-assessment.

No pre-post differences were found regarding care perceptions or provider work climate evaluations. Statistically significant improvements were noted among provider care evaluations. Using aggregate-level ward data, multiple regression analyses showed that high adherence to PFC principles and a positive work climate contributed significantly to variance among care quality ratings.

Among healthcare providers, questions related to specific PFC aspects during evenings, nights and weekends had to be dropped owing to a low response rate.

An important requirement for both practice and research is to tailor PFC to various health and social care contexts.

The study is large-scale before-after PFC model review, where patient and provider data were collected using well-established measurements.

The principal aim of this paper is to develop an instrument to measure quality of care in the psychiatric setting from an in‐patient perspective and to describe quality of care by means of this instrument. A further aim is to investigate the influence of background variables and expectations on the experience of care.

The instrument “Quality in psychiatric care” consists of two parts: one for measuring the patient's expectations regarding quality of care, the other for measuring his or her experiences regarding it. The instrument was derived from an earlier interview study of patients' perceptions of the quality of psychiatric care. A sample of 116 patients from eight in‐patient wards in Sweden participated in the present study.

Results indicate a generally high quality of care. Experienced quality of care was significantly lower, however, than expectations in all the dimensions of the instrument: total dimension, dignity, security, participation, recovery and environment. Patients who perceived that the time of discharge was consistent with the stage of their illness experienced significantly higher Recovery; patients with good psychiatric health experienced this too, but also significantly higher participation.

This new instrument needs to be further tested before the psychometric properties can be established.

The value of the research is that instruments for measuring the quality of in‐patient psychiatric care from the patient's perspective and with a theoretical foundation are less common.