Importance of the initial orthodontic visit: Development of a questionnaire

For an orthodontist to attract consumers it is important to know what consumers value when selecting an orthodontist. Objectives: Develop and test the reliability of a questionnaire that measured the relative importance of orthodontic office characteristics among prospective patients during the initial office examination. Methods: An initial questionnaire with open-ended questions based upon previous research literature was field tested on 16 subjects to assess validity. The questionnaire was modified based on field testing responses and was subsequently tested for reliability by a test-retest method on a new set of subjects. The questionnaire covered the following domains: doctor characteristics, office characteristics, staff characteristics, and financial characteristics. The reliability study included two groups of subjects: 12 consecutive prospective adult patients and 41 consecutive parents of prospective child patients. The questionnaires contained 43 questions for the adult and 50 questions for the parents utilizing a visual analog scale to assess office characteristics. Subjects rated characteristics using a 100mm visual analog scale where 0 represented “not important at all” and 100 represented “most important” in their selection of an orthodontist. Results: Reliability was analyzed using the Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Summary scores of all 53 subjects exhibited excellent reliability (ICC 0.88, range 0.61-1.0). Summary scores of all 50 questions showed acceptable reliability (ICC 0.70, range 0.32 – 0.88). Twenty-five questions had excellent reliability (ICC >.75). Twenty-three questions exhibited fair-to-good reliability (ICC 0.41 – 0.75). Two questions exhibited poor reliability (ICC < 0.4). Conclusion: Pilot study data indicate overall reliability of the questionnaire is acceptable. The two questions that had poor reliability will be removed from the questionnaire.