Ny Net. Patient satisfaction towards health services at the Out-patient department clinic of Wangnumyen Community Hospital, Sakaeo province, Thailand. Master's Degree(Primary Health Care Management). Mahidol University. : Mahidol University, 2007.
Patient satisfaction towards health services at the Out-patient department clinic of Wangnumyen Community Hospital, Sakaeo province, Thailand
Abstract:
This cross-sectional study was conducted to assess patient’s satisfaction with
health services at the outpatient department (OPD) clinic of Wangnumyen
Community Hospital, Sakaeo province, Thailand, and to determine the association
between satisfaction and explanatory factors. Suggestions and comments from the
patients were also revealed in this study.
Using a structured questionnaire, data were derived from 236 patients consuming
the OPD clinic services. Descriptive statistics were used to describe satisfaction level
and explanatory variables while the association between these factors and patient
satisfaction was determined by Chi-square test and/or Pearson correlation test.
The average score of patient satisfaction was 4.2 and 23.3% of the patients were
highly satisfied with the health services. Patients were highly satisfied with
availability of medical resources (37.3%), physical environment (36.9%), and
interpersonal manner of service providers (30.9%), quality of care (24.1%), medical
expenses (14.8%), and accessibility (13.9%). Female gender, being in a set payment
health insurance scheme, having good attitude and surprisingly, high expectation and
high transportation costs, were significantly associated with high satisfaction level.
The majority of comments from patients were critical of long waiting times for seeing
doctors and pharmacists, late commencement of doctor’s working time, and poor
interpersonal manner of doctors and nurses.
Reinforcement of the regulation on working hours and recruitment of more
doctors are recommended. Two ways communication during the provision of service
and the establishment of a good communicator model are also recommended. Patient
satisfaction studies should be conducted in parallel with studies on job satisfaction of
service providers in order to understand the concerns that make patients dissatisfied
and solve these problems accordingly