Patients' contentment and experiences with clinical care and services provided in a selected newly established...

Patient contentment is pertinent for measuring the performance of health- care service delivery, which is a multidimensional construct that depends on many factors. Out-patient department (OPD) is the first point of contact of the hospital with the patient. Patient satisfaction is one of the most essential outcome indicators to be measured to evaluate the quality of services provided to the patient and also provide the opportunity to improve the quality of services.

An institution-based mixed methods study (convergent-parallel design) was conducted. Study was conducted in the outpatient departments of a tertiary care hospital. Participants was selected using convenience sampling technique. A self-structured questionnaire was used to collect data.

Out of 2000 patients, 1077 (54%) were highly satisfied, 845 (42%) were moderately satisfied, whereas 78 (4%) were unsatisfied. The overall satisfaction among 2000 patients was found to be 95.8025±2.21. Mean satisfaction improved over the time as the facilities improved.

The overall contentment of patients with the services provided was good. As the institution is newly established, patients' expectations were high and increasing day by day so a few were unsatisfied also.