The Japanese version of the perceived service quality scale for community pharmacies: translation, cultural adaptation, and validation.

BACKGROUND: Delivering person-centred care is a core responsibility of community pharmacies. However, no validated Japanese scale currently exists to evaluate community pharmacy services from the perspective of patient experience. This study aimed to translate, culturally adapt, and validate the Perceived Service Quality Scale (pSQS) and its short-form (pSQS-SF6), originally developed to assess patient experiences in community pharmacies, into Japanese (pSQS-J and pSQS-J-SF6). METHODS: Following the established process, the pSQS-J was translated and culturally adapted from the original English version. The pSQS-J-SF6 was created by selecting one item from each domain. A survey was conducted among pharmacy users in Wakayama City, and descriptive statistics were reported. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were performed to explore psychometric properties. RESULTS: The pSQS-J was systematically translated and culturally adapted through a rigorous process. An online survey including the 19 pSQS-J items, along with demographic and related characteristics, was completed by 231 participants across nine pharmacies. After minor modifications (i.e., deleting one item and re-specifying another to a different factor), a six-factor correlated CFA model demonstrated acceptable fit and provided evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. A six-factor bifactor model demonstrated improved fit, and inspection of reliability indices reinforced the multidimensionality of the pSQS-J. However, the CFA results for pSQS-J-SF6 indicated insufficient evidence of convergent validity. CONCLUSION: The pSQS-J is a valid and reliable instrument for evaluating patient experience in Japanese community pharmacies and may facilitate the advancement of person-centred care.