Development and clinimetric testing of willingness to pay tool for physiotherapy

Abstract

Background: Lack of technical knowledge on Willingness to Pay (WTP) for health services may have contributed to paucity of WTP studies in physiotherapy.Objective: To develop and establish clinimetric properties of WTP tool for physiotherapy.Methods: A WTP tool with five sections exploring information on socio-demographics, physiotherapy experience, satisfaction with physiotherapy, cost of physiotherapy services and patients’ preferences for physiotherapy was developed. The WTP tool was tested for content validity, readability and thereafter completed on test–retest after one-week interval by 97 consenting physiotherapy outpatients. Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) with 95% confidence intervals and Cronbach’s alpha (α) were used to assess the data for reliability and internal consistency.Results: The tool's readability indicated a Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and Reading Ease scores of 5.6 and 66.7 respectively. ICC for aggregate score of ‘patients’ satisfaction’ was ‘moderate’ (0.644, p < 0.05), while the ‘cost of physiotherapy services’ section was ‘excellent’ (0.837, p < 0.05). The internal consistency of the ‘satisfaction with physiotherapy’ (0.783, p < 0.05) and ‘cost of physiotherapy services’ (0.911, p < 0.05) sections were ‘excellent’. The stability of the different sections of the instrument over one week period, as reflected by the ICC, ranged from ‘poor’ to ‘excellent’. Also, the Cronbach’s alpha and the ICC for the WTP characteristics were ‘poor’ to ‘excellent’, respectively.Conclusion: The WTP tool for physiotherapy appears comprehensible and reliable among patients with chronic conditions attending the physiotherapy clinic. Availability of this WTP tool will promote studies examining the demand for physiotherapy services.