Pattern of satisfaction among neurosurgical inpatients

To measure satisfaction among patients receiving indoor neurosurgical care and analyse the profile of the dissatisfied patients.

Cross-sectional study.

This study was undertaken at the Department of Neurosurgery, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Islamabad from March to April 2005.

A total of 133 patients were included in the study by convenience sampling technique. All the patients, who received indoor care for a minimum of 24 hours and were discharged home, were included in the study . Patients who remained hospitalized for more than 4 weeks and those not consenting to participate were excluded. A questionnaire was used for the study that covered five fundamental areas of hospital care i.e. availability and behaviour of the staff, communication of information, residential and management issues. A five-point response scale was used to rate responses to the questions in each of these areas. The demographic profile of the patients and respondents, mode of admission, diagnosis, operation and duration of hospitalization were also recorded. The average of the responses to the questions in each of the five areas was taken as the fundamental area score (FAS) and the average of all these individual area scores was taken as the patient satisfaction score (PSS). Overall satisfaction index (OSI) was measured by calculating the average of PSS, willingness to return score and willingness to recommend score.

Response rate was 100 %. Generally, patients were satisfied with care and rated various areas favourably. Behaviour of the staff was the highest rated area (95% score) while management was the lowest rated area (86.97% score). Dissatisfaction was more frequent among the young, the educated, the male and the relatives. The PSS was 91.32 %. Willingness to return score was 97.89% while willingness to recommend score was 95.48 %. The OSI was 94.89 %.

Analysis of patients' dissatisfaction over specific aspects of health care serves to identify areas that could be improved by simple interventions, hence, patient satisfaction surveys should be conducted on regular basis in order to utilize patients' critical feedback for achieving service excellence and improved quality of care.