The use of EUROPEP in South Africa: an internationally standardised instrument to evaluate general practice

The study examined the psychometric properties of the South African (isiXhosa) version of the European Task Force for Patient Evaluation of General Practice (EUROPEP) instrument. A total of 19,136 patients who visited 266 primary care practices in three districts in the Eastern Cape of South Africa completed the EUROPEP, a measure of patient satisfaction with care. The data were analyzed for reliability and construct validity. Exploratory factor analysis yielded three different sub-dimensions: medical technical content of care, patient-provider communication, and practice organisation. The reliability of the items and of the different sub-scales was high. The EUROPEP instrument can be a valuable instrument in assessing patients' evaluations of primary health care in South Africa.