The Quality of Therapeutic Alliance between Patient and Provide Predicts General Satisfaction

Abstract

Objectives: Therapeutic alliance has been proposed as an ideal patient-provider relationship. The Kim Alliance Scale (KAS) measures the quality of therapeutic alliance, including patient empowerment. The objectives were to refine KAS and to measure the relationship between therapeutic alliance and patients' general satisfaction. Methods: A total of 601 evaluable patients was recruited, 304 patients in exploratory series and 297 patients in validation series. Patients completed a demographics questionnaire, the KAS, and Patient Satisfaction with Health Care Provider Scale. Results: Using the exploratory series, KAS was refined into a 16-item KAS-R consisting of collaboration, integration, empowerment, and communication subscales. Internal consistency reliability of KAS-R was 0.89. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses of the two series showed that KAS-R accounts for 35% to 36% of the variance in general satisfaction scores. Conclusions: Therapeutic alliance, as measured by KAS-R, predicted approximately one-third of patients' general satisfaction and empowerment was a significant predictor variable.