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Race/ethnicity and patient satisfaction. Using the appropriate method to test for perceived differences in care
1Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2160, USA. barr@stanford.edu
Objective:
To determine whether an established patient satisfaction scale commonly used in the primary care setting is sufficiently sensitive to identify racial/ethnic differences in satisfaction that may exist; to compare a composite indicator of overall patient satisfaction with a 4-item satisfaction scale that measures only the quality of the direct physician-patient interaction.
Design:
Real-time survey of patients during a primary care office visit.
Setting:
Private medical offices in a generally affluent area of northern California.
Participants:
Five hundred thirty-seven primary care patients selected at random from those entering a medical office.
Main Outcome Measures:
Patient satisfaction using 1) a composite, 9-item satisfaction scale (VSQ-9); and 2) a 4-item subset of that scale that measures only satisfaction with direct physician care.
Results:
The 9-item, composite scale identified no significant difference in patient satisfaction between white and nonwhite patients, after controlling for patient demographics and other aspects of the visit. The 4-item, physician-specific scale indicated that nonwhite patients were less satisfied than white patients with their direct interaction with the physicians included in the study (P
Conclusions:
Measurements of patient satisfaction that use multi-item, composite indicators should also include focused comparisons of satisfaction directly with the care provided by the physician. In measurements of patient satisfaction, patient race/ethnicity should be included as an explanatory variable. The results also confirm earlier findings that factors external to the direct physician-patient interaction can have substantial effects on patients' perceptions of that interaction.