ReviewFrontiers in health services2026
The patient-doctor relationship questionnaire (PDRQ-9). An overview of 20 years of research and a proposal for normalisation of scores. Systematic review.
Review in Frontiers in health services, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: The Patient-Doctor Relationship Questionnaire (PDRQ-9) was developed as the first questionnaire to establish the quality of the Patient-Doctor Relationship (PDR) from the patient's perspective. It was published in 2004, has been translated and psychometrically tested in many languages, and is used widely. Objectives: This study aims to explore the reliability and validity of the PDRQ-9 in various languages and countries, to report norm scores and cut-off scores for an above or below-average relationship, and to propose a novel scoring method for the PDRQ-9 based on the findings. Methods: Results: The search resulted in 66 studies performed in primary care and various specialist general healthcare and mental healthcare settings in up to 24 countries. Twenty-five of those adapted the PDRQ-9 in 15 different languages and reported on its validity. Fourteen studies investigated the factor structure, and in all except one, the one-dimensional structure of the PDQR-9 was confirmed. Based on normalised Discussion: Construct and criterion validity are well supported, with correlations between the PDRQ-9 score and patients reporting that they understood their illness well, experiencing more shared decision-making and adherence to treatment. Interpretation: The PDRQ-9 is an instrument that was psychometrically tested with its validity supported worldwide and fulfils a need. As the PDR is essential in health services, the PDRQ-9 is a highly relevant measure. It provides a good measure of the PDR when total scores are transformed to a metric with a normal distribution, yielding helpful information, especially when the PDR is challenged. Future studies should preferably report normalised sum scores over mean scores of the items, to improve interpretation in view of ceiling effects, and given the provided cut-off score levels, as well as for consistency in the international literature. Systematic Review Registration: https://www.researchregistry.com/browse-the-registry#registryofsystematicreviewsmeta-analyses/, reviewregistry1953.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.