Patients’ satisfaction with outreach eye care service provided in South West Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Nowadays, assessing patient satisfaction is an integral part of monitoring and evaluation of health service delivery and quality assurance. Patient satisfaction with the outreach based eye care service in Ethiopia has not been studied.
Objective: This study was conducted to determine the overall patient satisfaction and its factors and predictors in Southwest Ethiopia.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 411 sampled ophthalmic patients who received eye care service during regular ophthalmic outreach programs of Jimma University from January-December, 2013. Overall patient satisfaction was measured using a validated patient satisfaction questionnaire (PSQ-18). The physical facility of the outreach sites were assessed by complementary questions. Mean satisfaction scores were calculated and compared among variables using ANOVA test. Multivariate analysis and linear regression models were tested and were considered significant if P<0.05.
Results: Majority, 402(97.8%) of the study subjects were satisfied and the overall mean satisfaction score of the study subjects was 4.7(SD±0.5) out of 5. This was statistically different among subgroups of age (P=0.000), education level (P=0.007) and occupation type (P=0.000) but not with sex (P=0.393), religion (P=0.059) and marital status (P=0.124). Age was the only independent factor for the overall satisfaction (P=0.007). Among components of patient satisfaction, the highest mean was in communication 4.63(SD±0.6) followed by technical quality of health care providers 4.60(SD±0.6). The interpersonal manner of health care providers had the lowest mean score 3.3(SD±1.6). Each of the components (technical quality, interpersonal manner, communication, financial aspect, time spent with care providers, accessibility and convenience, physical facility) were significantly associated with overall satisfaction (P<0.05). All these components except physical facility and financial aspect were significant linear predictors of overall satisfaction.
Conclusion: The overall patient satisfaction to the regular outreach eye care services was very high. Jimma University should therefore continue the program while improving on each domain of satisfaction measures with the focus on interpersonal manner and accessibility and convenience.