Development of a generic scale to measure psychotherapy specific treatment satisfaction scale

Patient satisfaction with psychotherapy is a crucial quality indicator in mental health care for assessing feedback and development in the global practice of mental health, but its measurement is deficient in sub-Saharan Africa. The Psychotherapy Specific Treatment Satisfaction Scale (PSTSS) measures treatment satisfaction in the context of psychotherapy. This mixed method randomly selected 144 outpatients at the Yaba Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, with ages ranging from 18 to 65 years old. It used a cross-sectional design purposefully to determine the development, validity, and psychometric properties of the PSTSS. Using exploratory factor analysis and Varimax rotation, the results showed that the scale has four components (KMO = 0.797; p < .001); PSTSS positively correlated with the Patient Satisfaction with Medical Care Scale (r = .910, p < .01), and negatively correlated with the General Self-Efficacy Scale (r =-.30, p < .01) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (r = − .30, p < .01) which shows that the newly developed PSTSS significantly converges with the existing PSMCS and discriminates with GSES and SLS, which makes the new scale a valid measure of patient satisfaction with psychotherapy in Nigeria thus, showing strong validity. The reliability was meritorious with overall Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.891. The study concludes that PSTSS is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring treatment satisfaction. Also, it can contribute to enhancing the understanding of treatment satisfaction by aiding both research and clinical practice in evaluating and improving psychotherapy interventions.