Patient satisfaction: a tool for quality control

Abstract

Background: Patient satisfaction is one of the established yardsticks to measure success of the services being provided in the health facilities and critical issue for healthcare providers. It is a complex attitude because a multitude of variables have been identified as its predictors. Diversity in patients' demographics also molds their perceptions about hospital facilities and services. Methods: A hospital based study has been undertaken between November 2014 and January 2015 at the Dr. B. Borooah Cancer Institute (BBCI), Guwahati, Assam, India with 50 patients. Primary data was collected through survey approach with systematic random sampling from 50 patients. A semi-structured questionnaire was extracted from the literature relating to the patients' satisfaction from healthcare services. Results: Most of the patients were from underserved sections of the community. The overall rating for doctor-patient relationship had 68% satisfied respondents. 70% respondents were satisfied with basic facilities; only 40% respondent were satisfied with information and support services offered 30% respondents were dissatisfied with the organization of care in the institute, overall the respondent posted a satisfaction percentage of 64%. Conclusions: From the present study we can conclude that, assessing satisfaction of patients is simple and cost effective way for evaluation of hospital services and has helped finding that patients were more satisfied with behaviour of doctors and dissatisfaction was found to be more regarding cleanliness in the toilets and the wards.

Patients’ satisfaction survey on healthcare services among non-communicable disease patients at a tertiary care hospital in Puducherry

“…Hence, a large number of patients from the Puducherry and also from neighboring districts of Tamil Nadu are expected to be catered by the hospital which in turn has an impact on waiting time for consultation. There prevailed a high level of satisfaction of respondents, against the care attributes of communication about the disease process, sense of concern shown by the doctors to the patients during consultation and consultation time with the doctors which were similar to studies done by Singh S et al and Baruah M et al (14,15) The participants in the present study were not so happy about the waiting time for collection of medicines at the dispensary counters which was consistent with findings from similar studies. (16,17,18) The long duration of waiting time for collection of medicines in the present study could be again substantiated because of the patient load to the hospital.…”

Patients’ Satisfaction regarding Treatment and Perceived Barriers: A Study of Social Health Insurance Scheme in Kaski District

“…The sampling population was 354 patients who were receiving treatment services under the social health insurance scheme. The sample size of the study was estimated on the basis of the prevalence of satisfaction at 95% confidence limit and 5% allowable error where the prevalence of overall satisfaction was 64% (Baruah et al, 2016). To get these samples, Western Regional Hospital was purposively selected.…”

An evaluation of the in-patient feedback services in a tertiary care hospital of Northern India

“…The overall impression of the hospital was rated as satisfactory (average score of 3.58) by 68% of the patients which is in consonance to the 64% and 63% reported in studies by Baruah et al and by Mahapatra et al respectively. 19,23 But is significantly lower than those reported by Deva et al in Kashmir at 80%, Kumari et al from Lucknow at 81.6%. 6,24 Though the average scores for medical and nursing care were high (70-74% satisfaction), but the overall percentage of patients satisfied is only 68% which goes on to prove that the patients' perception of quality is changing with the times.…”

“…This is in contrast to a study conducted by Baruah M et al in which only 40% of the patients were satisfied with the nursing care. 19 66.2% and 72.4% admitted patients respectively found availability and behavior of ward attendants to be satisfactory.…”