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Client-Focused Care: An Evaluation of Tools for Gathering Client Satisfaction Data

Exit interviews and focus groups are two of the most widely used tools in health services research for measuring client satisfaction with health services. However, studies of the validity, utility, feasibility, and costs of these tools are virtually nonexistent. In addition, little information is available on using different types of data collectors to gather client satisfaction information. The Quality Assurance Project (QAP) recently attempted to bridge this information gap by evaluating two data-collection tools and three data-collector types in three districts in the Tahoua Region of Niger. QAP with a mandate from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to evaluate client satisfaction assessment tools in the developing world, chose to evaluate the tools and three data-collector types in Niger, so that the study could be linked to recent QAP work (1993-1998) in providing long-term assistance quality assurance to the Tahoua Region.