Postoperative Satisfaction of Adult Patients Who Underwent Surgery at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Abha City, Saudi Arabia
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- Category: Vol. 85, December 2017
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Postoperative Satisfaction of Adult Patients Who Underwent Surgery at a Tertiary Care Hospital in Abha City, Saudi Arabia, ABDULAZIZ A. ALAMRI, TURKI A. ALQAHTANI, SAAD A. ALAMRI and OSSAMA A. MOSTAFA
Abstract
Background: Higher patient satisfaction was associated with lower postoperative mortality, readmissions, and length of stay.
Aim of Study: To assess patients’ satisfaction regarding their expected and received health care provided to surgery patients at a tertiary care hospital and to identify determinants of their satisfaction.
Methodology: Following a cross sectional research design, this study included 200 adult patients, who were admitted to different surgical departments, (including urology, general surgery, orthopedic, neurosurgery and fine surgery) in Aseer Central Hospital (ACH). A special data collection sheet has been designed by the researchers which included patients' personal data and the Arabic version of the Service Quality questionnaire. Each patient was interviewed after surgery on the day of his/her discharge using the data collection tool.
Results: Quality of provided health services was signifi-cantly less than that expected across all domains of patients’ satisfaction (p<0.001 for all components), with responsiveness and reliability having the wider gaps (differences) between expected and received services (39.5±24.8% and 38.4±22.5%, respectively). Mean scores for received services for almost all satisfaction domains showed highest satisfaction among patients aged >35 years. For all domains, Saudi patients had significantly higher expected quality than non-Saudi patients (p<0.001). Those who stayed postoperatively in hospital for 5-7 days had significantly higher expected quality of health services than those who stayed for less or more days.
Conclusions: Quality of provided health services to surgery patients at a tertiary care hospital is significantly less than that expected by them across all components of patients’ satisfaction. Surgeons need to allocate more time to commu-nicate preoperatively and postoperatively with their patients. Main determinants of better surgery patients’ satisfaction toward health care include older age and 5-7 days’ hospital stay. Therefore, further studies are needed to explore the optimal duration of postoperative hospital stay to avoid early or late discharge.