Patient Satisfaction is Not Associated With Self-reported Disability in a Spine Patient Population

This is a retrospective review.

To evaluate the relationship between patient functional status and self-assessment of disability as measured by 3 commonly used clinical assessment instruments-the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), the Neck Disability Index (NDI), and the EuroQol (EQ)-5D and patient satisfaction scores in a spine surgery clinic population.

Patient satisfaction surveys, which measure the "patient experience of care" are becoming an increasingly important measure of the quality of medical care. Despite the widespread use of patient satisfaction surveys, little is known about the relationship between patient satisfaction and patient functional status or self-assessed level of disability.

We retrospectively reviewed records of 231 consecutive patients presenting to a single academic spine surgery center between February 2011 and October 2013 who completed both a patient satisfaction survey as well as one or more patient-reported outcome questionnaires (NDI, ODI, and/or EQ-5D) for a single clinical encounter. Statistical analysis was performed to determine if an association exists between the overall patient satisfaction score and each patient-reported outcome score.

Spearman correlation coefficients demonstrated no correlation between any patient-reported outcome score and the patient satisfaction score [NDI=-0.113 (-0.409 to 0.207) P=0.489] [ODI=-0.008 (-0.149 to 0.133) P=0.912] [EQ-5D=0.011 (-0.119 to 0.140) P=0.872] for a single clinical encounter.

These results provide evidence against an association between patient-reported functional status or self-assessed level of disability and patient satisfaction in a spine patient population.