Patient Satisfaction with Emergency Departments in Governmental General Hospitals, Kuwait

Abstract

Background: Patient satisfaction is one of the essential determinants and indicators of the quality of health care and services delivery. Evaluation of patient satisfaction is considered an emergency department goal. Objective: The objective of the current study was to evaluate patient satisfaction with the emergency department in Kuwait governmental general hospitals. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from January to March 2016 in all governmental general hospitals located in different governorates of Kuwait state. A systematic random sample of patients attending the emergency departments of these hospitals taking every 10 th patient was selected to participate in the study. The 20-item-satisfaction questionnaire of the Press Ganey Institute was used as a tool for data collection. Totally, 713 patients were enrolled in this study. Results: The data indicated that more than half of the subjects in this study were males (53.7%) and 46.3% were females. The minimum age of subjects was 18 years and the maximum 86 years, with an average value of 37.1±15.3 years. The overall satisfaction with emergency services was 58.4%, although 18.9% were dissatisfied. Items with high level of satisfaction included: Concern the nurse showed for doing medical orders (67.2%), physician's courtesy and behavior with the patients (66.6%), provider's efforts to get the patients involved in making decisions about their own treatment (60.7%), security guards' courtesy (60.3%) and nurses' courtesy with the patients (66.5%). The lowest level of satisfaction refers to the following items: Comfort and pleasantness of the waiting area (48.0%), waiting time for the first visit (46.4%), and overall cleanliness (55.8%). The data indicated that females were significantly more satisfied than males regarding courtesy of staff in the registration area (P=0.028), courtesy of security staff (P=0.001), courtesy of staff who transfer the patients (P=0.014), friendliness/courtesy of the care provider (P=0.019), concern the care provider showed for questions or worries (P=0.006), instructions the care provider gave about follow-up care (P=0.019). On the other hand, overall satisfaction with cleanliness was higher among males (P=0.012). Conclusion: The study findings indicated that giving services to emergency clients was relatively agreeable. However, interventions are needed in some areas such as waiting area, length of waiting before examinations, amount of time physicians spend with patients and frequency of being visited by physicians. Time of visit and gender differences did not have a profound impact on satisfaction level.