Qualpacs is a well-known American instrument for measuring the quality of nursing care received by patients. Sarah Oliver puts some practical difficulties of its application under scrutiny

We are currently using Qualpacs, the Quality Patient Care Scale (1), in the Nursing Research Unit of King's College, London University, as part of a two-year project funded by the Department of Health. One of the major objectives of this study is to investigate the reliability and validity of Qualpacs. This article will briefly consider the characteristics and potentialities of the instrument, but will concentrate mainly on some of the practical difficulties encountered in its administration.