Assessment of patient satisfaction with endoscopy using an interactive voice response system

The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of patient's satisfaction assessment after endoscopy using an interactive voice response (IVR) system.

A specific IVR system was developed for this study and proposed to patients by 161 private gastroenterologists after an endoscopic procedure. No reminder was used for the patients not calling spontaneously the IVR.

After endoscopy, 31% of the patients called the IVR and 1052 answered the entire questionnaire. The answers obtained by the IVR and a face-to-face interview were concordant for 98.8% of the questions. The endoscopy was carried out with anesthesia for 94% of the patients and 95% stated they would agree to undergo the procedure again under the same conditions. This was independently associated with the presence of explanations about the procedure before its realization, male gender and, for the patients having had a colonoscopy, difficulties in taking the bowel cleaner and the presence of pain after the colonoscopy.

This study shows the feasibility of patient's satisfaction assessment with endoscopy using an IVR system under routine conditions of endoscopy practice.