Development and Psychometric Assessment of the Methadone Therapy Experiences Questionnaire among Patients under Treatment

BACKGROUND: Patient experiences play an important role in the quality of health care and gathering patients’ experiences is common as part of quality measurement in health care. The present study was carried out with the aim of developing and psychometric analysis of the methadone therapy experiences questionnaire among patients under treatment with methadone. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed in 2018 and 200 patients referred to the addiction treatment clinics in Kerman, Iran, participated in this study. The convenient sampling method was employed. The validity was assessed using the opinions of 50 individuals similar to the target population and 8 experts. In addition, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was utilized to examine the test-retest reliability. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics in the SPSS software. FINDINGS: The face validity of the questionnaire was acceptable in the present study and the values for content validity were higher than 0.79, indicating the appropriate content validity of the questionnaire [content validity index (CVI) = 0.82 and content validity ratio (CVR) = 0.83]. Moreover, the results confirmed the reliability or reproducibility of the questionnaire (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.83). CONCLUSION: The methadone therapy experiences questionnaire was of a good validity and reliability among the patients. In the clinical area, the psychiatrists, psychologists, authorities, and staff in addiction treatment clinics can identify the quality of treatment and its strengths and weaknesses using this questionnaire.