Last update:
   08-Apr-2008
 

Arch Hellen Med, 25(1), January-February 2008, 73-82

ORIGINAL PAPER

Measuring satisfaction with health care services in an Athens pediatric hospital

V. PAPAGIANNOPOULOU,1 G. PIERRAKOS,2 Ì. SARRIS,2 J. YFANTOPOULOS1
1Department of Political Science and Public Administration, School of Law, Economic and Political Sciences, University of Athens, Athens,
2Technological Institute of Athens, Athens, Greece

OBJECTIVE The measurement of patient satisfaction with the healthcare services provided by a pediatric hospital in Athens as reported by the children's escorts.

METHOD In order to measure the patients' satisfaction, a total of 1000 individuals were enrolled in the study, using a stratified sampling method. Specifically, children's escorts were asked to indicate their satisfaction with hospital admission procedures and the hospital personnel (medical, nursing, administrative). Satisfaction was measured with the usage of a five-level Likert scale in which one represented complete dissatisfaction and 5 complete satisfaction. An open question was also included in order to provide the wider view of the escorts about the hospital services. Questionnaires were filled out by personal interview, during the period January-March 2004.

RESULTS The response rate was estimated to be 70%. In total, 45.2% of the children's escorts were "very to completely satisfied" with the information provided by the hospital, and 49% were "very satisfied" with the hospital admission procedures, while 150 children's escorts were "completely dissatisfied". In addition, 54.3% of the children's escorts were "very to completely satisfied" with the politeness of the personnel, while 2.1% complained about the personnel's attitude. Medical services were rated with a mean value of 3.6, and nursing services with 3.4. In addition, 33.4% of the children's escorts were "very satisfied" with the politeness, 32.8% with the understanding and 32.1% with the services provided by administrative personnel. The hospital substructure was rated with a mean value of 2.4, while the majority of the children's escorts stated that the substructure needed to be renovated.

CONCLUSIONS The evaluation of hospital services revealed that children's escorts were more satisfied that they had expected to be. The hospital personnel, and specifically the medical and nursing services were highly rated, improving the general profile of the hospital. Conversely, the children's escorts' satisfaction was negatively affected by the hospital substructure.

Key words: Healthcare system, Medical services, Nursing services, Quality of services, Satisfaction.

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