Validación de un instrumento para medir la percepción de la calidad de los servicios farmacéuticos del Sistema Público de Salud de Costa Rica

objective: to develop a valid and reliable instrument to assess the perceived quality by the users of pharmaceutical services in the costa rican public health system. methods: it was developed an instrument conformed of three dimensions: technical, interpersonal, and environmental, with 53 likert scale items. it was evaluated by four pharmacy professionals with extensive experience in investigative, administrative and clinical areas, from which turned out in a questionnaire of 49 questions applied to 115 users of the pharmacy from the san rafael de alajuela hospital. to analyze unidimensionality was applied factor analysis, for reliability the item-total correlation, and for internal consistency cronbach’s alpha. the statistical package used was spss, version 17. results: factor analysis determined unidimensionality in the instrument, the first factor accumulated 30,1% of the total variance and the second 8,1%, which means that all the items that comprise the actual indicator is measuring a single construct theoretical, that means that forms a scale. reliability analysis suggested the elimination of five items and another by aspects of internal consistency, for a final cronbach’s alpha of 0,951. conclusions: this is the first valid and reliable instrument for measuring perceived quality in pharmacy units of costa rican’s social security