The Study On The Level And Influential Factors Of The Inpatients' Satisfaction With Medical Services In A Hospital

Objective To measure and evaluate the inpatients' satisfaction with the medical services of the hospital, and to analyze the determinants of inpatient satisfaction, and to provide reference evidence for the medical decision making of the health government and the evaluation on the performance of the hospital.Methods From June to August, 2007, the study sample was selected from a hospital in Hunan province using simple random sampling method. A self-administered questionnaire entitled in Inpatient's Satisfaction Questionnaire was used to collect the patient's information about basic characteristics such as gender, age, marital status, working status, education, payment, etc, and consulting reason as well as the five dimensions of satisfaction including hospital environment and facilities, attitude of staff, efficiency of administration (waiting time), procedure of medical service, and the outcomes of medical service. The inpatients' level of satisfaction was measured by using a 5-point scale of Likert. Cronbach'sαcoefficient and split-half reliability were used to estimate the reliability of the questionnaire. The score of satisfaction degree was described by mean and standard deviation. Non-parametric test was performed to compare the mean score between two groups or among more than two groups. The result of satisfaction was categorized into satisfied with the score≥4 and non-satisfied with the score <4. Database was set up and all statistical methods were performed using SPSS software package(version 11.0). The significant level of two-tailed test wasα=0.05.Results A total of 440 inpatients including 253 males(57.5%) and 187 females (42.5% ) finished the questionnaire. 66.1% inpatients ranked the higher quality of medical services in the hospital as the top rank reason for consulting on their health conditions. The questionnaire used in the study has a good reliability with the Cronbach'sαcoefficients between 0.821 and 0.955, and with split-half reliabilities between 0.796 and 0.911. The multiple correlations were found between the items of the dimension of medical service with other dimensions in canonical correction analysis. The mean score of satisfaction with procedure of medical services was 3.95, followed by the mean score with attitude of staff (3.92), waiting time(3.81), and the outcomes of medical service(3.79), hospital environment and facilities(3.70),and the total mean score of satisfaction was 3.88. The rate of satisfaction for each dimension was from 72.7% to 84.1%, and the total rate of satisfaction was 83.6%. The results implied that most inpatients are satisfied with medical services even though some inpatients had lower rate of satisfaction with dietary in hospital (36.4%) and with health expenditure (37.3%).Conclusion In the sample hospital most inpatients are satisfied with medical services and have highest level of satisfaction with procedure of medical services and not satisfied with high health expenditure. The results indicated that the effectual measures should be taken to improve the support system of the hospital and control the medical cost.