Page 22 - THE DUTCH TALKING TOUCH SCREEN QUESTIONNAIRE

Chapter 1
OBJECTIVES AND OUTLINE OF THIS THESIS
Application of TT technology within Dutch health care was not described in the literature prior to this PhD project, even though the technology to build it existed. The aim of the current research project was to adapt the most frequently used questionnaire in Dutch physical therapy practice and add TT technology to it in a way that would support Dutch and Turkish physical therapy patients to explicate symptoms, limitations and treatment goals during the diagnostic phase of their physical therapy treatment process. Because it is not ethical nor practical to differentiate levels of HL of patients in clinical practice by starting the treatment process with a time-consuming and burdening health literacy assessment, the researchers of the current project wanted patients of all HL levels to be capable and feel comfortable using the questionnaire.
For the research project that is described within this thesis, the Patient-Specific Complaint Questionnaire (PSC) [53,54] was taken as a starting point for the development of a Dutch version of the TT, called the Dutch Talking Touch Screen Questionnaire (Dutch TTSQ) [55]. The PSC was chosen because it was the most frequently used questionnaire in Dutch physical therapy practice [55,56]. Its content fits the goal of helping patients to provide relevant information regarding their health problem to their physical therapist. It aims to make the patient select his or her main limitations in functioning and formulate his or her own specific treatment goals. This paper-based questionnaire is responsive and sensitive to change in complaints that are highly relevant to the individual patient [53,54,55].
The first objective within the current research project was to assess which problems physical therapy patients with diverse levels of HL, and Dutch and Turkish backgrounds, encountered during completion of the PSC [53,54]. The results of this study which are described in Chapter 2, led to the second objective of the research project, which was the development of a working prototype of the Dutch TTSQ, described in Chapter 3. Based on the lessons learned during this process, guidelines for designing interactive questionnaires for low literacy persons were given within this chapter. The last objective was to test whether the newly-developed Dutch TTSQ generated accurate information on symptoms, limitations and treatment goals of patients with diverse
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