Reliability and Validity of a Thai Version of the General Practice Assessment Questionnaire (GPAQ)
Darin Jaturapatporn MD*, Saipin Hathirat MD*, Benjama Manataweewat MD*, Alan C Dellow MD**, Somyot Leelaharattanarak MD***, Surakarn Sirimothya MD***, Jareeporn Dellow MD***, Umaporn Udomsubpayakul MD****
Affiliation : * Department of Family Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University ** General Practice trainer, Tutor to the Oxford Deanery, Amersham health centre, Royal College of General Practitioners, UK *** Translator and Back translator **** Research Center and Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Ramathibodi Hospital
Background : The Assessment Questionnaire (GPAQ) is a questionnaire for patients to evaluate primary care
in a number of key areas ranging from the access to care, the helpfulness of receptionists, the continuity of
care, the doctors’ communication skills, the patient’s knowledge of self, the General Practice care plans after
consultation, and overall satisfaction. All questions can be calculated as a GPAQ score allowing services to
be analysed, developed, and improved.
Objective : The General Practice Assessment Questionnaire (GPAQ) was developed in the United Kingdom to
evaluate the quality of general practice (i.e. primary care or family medicine). The aim of the present study was
to translate and validate a Thai language version of GPAQ.
Materials and Methods : Cross-sectional study: the content validity was examined by three experts in the Family
Medicine field, and then the original GPAQ was translated into Thai with permission from the National
Primary Care Research and Development Centre, University of Manchester and Safran. The translation
process followed the guidelines for cross-cultural adaptation of self-report measures, including forward
translation, synthesis of the translation, back translation, cross-cultural adaptation and pre-testing. The
pilot study was done by distributing the questionnaire to a sample of 30 people before revision of the question-
naire. The reliability and validity of the translated version was then examined by distributing the question-
naire to 2,600 people visiting the out-patient clinic at the Department of Family Medicine, Ramathibodi
Hospital in October, 2005
Results : The response rate is about 70 percent. The results of the present study showed that the Thai version of
GPAQ achieved good levels of reliability and validity, with the range of Cronbach’s alpha coefficients being
0.7293-0.8324 in each aspect of GPAQ, namely access, doctor’s communication skills, and patient enablement
(understanding of self care after the consultation). However, a question about telephone consultations had to
be excluded from the questionnaire to reach Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.8221.
Conclusion : After translation and cross-cultural adaptation the Thai version of GPAQ can be used as a
patient-administered instrument to evaluate the quality of primary care in Thailand.
Keywords : General practice, Family medicine, Quality, Reliability, Validity
