Patient satisfaction with nursing care at a university hospital in Turkey

Patient satisfaction is an important measure of service quality (SQ) in health care organizations. Patients' satisfaction and their expectations of care are valid indicators of quality nursing care. This article reports the results of a survey patient satisfaction with nursing care, administered by interview to 422 adults discharged from a university hospital in Turkey. The direct measurement of patient satisfaction with nursing care is a new phenomenon for this university hospital, and this was the first time that such an evaluation had been done in this particular hospital. In this study, SERVQUAL scale was used for determining patient satisfaction with nursing care. Weighted scores in dimensions of SERVQUAL were generally low, and there were statistically significant differences in means paired t-tests (p < .01). Sociodemographic characteristics of the patients (age, gender, education level) with regard to patient satisfaction were determined. Several statistically significant differences were found between the sociodemographic characteristics and weighted scores for dimensions of SERVQUAL (p < 0.5). According to results, the SQ gap scores for five dimensions were negative to meet expectations. The negative scores for tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy indicate areas needing improvement. In this hospital, results of this study support the need for nurses to take steps to improve patient satisfaction with nursing care.