Relationship between inpatient satisfaction and the quality of surgery

This study sought to investigate the correlation between inpatient satisfaction and surgical quality evaluation indicators, and explore the factors affecting inpatient satisfaction.

A total of 5,000 inpatients who underwent surgery at 10 tertiary. A hospital in Chongqing were randomly selected and asked to complete an inpatient satisfaction questionnaire developed by our team in a previous study. A logistic regression was undertaken to analyze the factors affecting inpatient satisfaction, and the relationship between inpatient satisfaction and evaluation indicators of surgical quality.

The overall satisfaction level of inpatients undergoing surgery was high. Specifically, the satisfaction level was 88.7%, and the dissatisfaction level was 11.3%. A univariate analysis showed that age, marital status, education level, monthly family income, the source of medical costs, the average length of the hospital stay, first hospitalization or not, doctor-patient communication, the quality of surgery, service attitude, 30-day postoperative mortality, major and minor complications, the rescue failure rate, readmission, and the incision infection rate affected the patient satisfaction, and the difference between satisfied and dissatisfied patients in each group was statistically significant (all P=0.000). The results of the logistic regression analysis showed that the factors related to the satisfaction of surgical quality indicators were postoperative 30-day mortality, major and minor complications, the rescue failure rate, the incision infection rate, and the average length of the hospital stay (all P<0.05), and the factors related to a decrease in inpatient satisfaction were increased postoperative 30-day mortality, a high incidence of major and minor complications, a high rescue failure rate, and a high incision infection rate.

There was a significant correlation between inpatient satisfaction and surgical quality evaluation indicators (i.e., 30-day mortality, major and minor complications, the rescue failure rate, the incision infection rate, and the average length of the hospital stay).