Patients' satisfaction with the quality of health services provided at the outpatient department at al-Shifa hospital

Abstract EN

This study aims to assess the patient's level of satisfaction with health services provided at Outpatients' Department at Al-Shifa Hospital.

The design of this study is quantitative, descriptive, analytical, cross-sectional one.

Interviewed questionnaire was developed and focused on patient's satisfaction. Probability systematic random sample was used in this study and 450 participants were interviewed with a response rate of 90 %.

Validity and reliability of the instrument were tested and the total instrument reliability test Cranach's Alpha was 0.91.

Five dimensions of patients' satisfaction were considered in this study; namely, access to care, physical environment, patients' expectations, waiting time in addition to information and interaction. The overall patients' level of satisfaction was 63.9 %.

The patients' expectation dimension reported the highest level of satisfaction (68.1%), while, the waiting time dimension reported the lowest level of satisfaction (58.5%).

The study revealed that, there were statistically significant differences in the overall satisfaction with old patients, females, low educated, patients with low income and patients with chronic diseases are more satisfied than their counterparts (P value equal or less than 0.05).

In contrast, residency place, marital status, number of visits, presence of disability, the recipient outpatient clinic, and the place that consumed most of the visit time did not show statistically significant difference on patients' level of satisfaction.

The study recommended that reduced the patients' time in the outpatient clinic, introducing improvement on existing physical environment of the department and improving the way of communication and interaction between health care providers and patients are important factors for improving the patients level of satisfaction.