Patient satisfaction and treatment environment: a 20-year follow-up study from an acute psychiatric ward

The aim of this study was to examine to what extent the different subscales of the Ward Atmosphere Scale (WAS) are related to patient satisfaction on wards for psychotic patients. We wanted to examine if it was possible to replicate previous findings from cross-sectional studies and improve the understanding of which of the WAS subscales that should be considered the most important for patient satisfaction. From 1981 through 2000, the ward atmosphere, in an acute psychiatric ward, was evaluated 11 times with the Ward Atmosphere Scale (WAS). A total of 129 patients completed the WAS as well as a General Satisfaction Index (GSI) comprising three items. Z-scores were calculated to describe the fluctuations in the GSI and the WAS subscales. Four of the WAS subscales, Involvement, Practical orientation, Angry and aggressive behavior and Staff control, strongly co-varied with patient satisfaction. Unexpectedly, the Support and Order and organization subscales correlated only moderately with patient satisfaction. The remaining five WAS subscales (Spontaneous behavior, Autonomy, Personal problem orientation, Program clarity and Staff attitude to expressed feelings) were only weakly correlated with patient satisfaction. This study confirms that four of the six assumedly most important WAS subscales are strongly related to patient satisfaction on wards for psychotic patients. Changes in these WAS subscales seems to be paralleled by changes in patient satisfaction in the expected direction.