Foodservice quality in South African hospitals: patient experiences

This paper presents an interpretive data analysis from a superordinate study that aimed to determine foodservice satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to determine inpatient hospital foodservice experiences.

The authors used secondary data obtained from 419 respondents: (225 (53.70 per cent) males, 178 (42.48 per cent) females and 16 (3.82 per cent) undisclosed) participants. A comparative, quantitative and cross-sectional approach was applied to provide insight into hospital foodservice experiences. The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test, interpreted at 0.05 error rate, was used to compare male and female patient experiences.

Male patients had significantly higher rank-sum scores than female patients in almost all items (p<0.0001). The study revealed that hospital personnel, especially foodservice staff, had an unsatisfactory communication approach.

This is the first South African study that compares female and male inpatient foodservice perceptions. Hospital managers and stakeholders may need to consider patient's gender, as a significant factor that is associated with patient experiences, when embarking on improving foodservice systems.