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Abstract
Background Patient satisfaction reflects the quality of service provided by healthcare professionals.
In our Outpatient Unit (OU) important changes have been implemented: change of location, a Programme of Scheduled Appointments (PSA) and opening hours have been extended.
Purpose After the implementation of the changes:
To assess the degree of outpatient satisfaction
To collect all comments/suggestions in order to identify areas we could improve further.
Material and methods Non-experimental, cross-sectional study over a period of six months (1 March–1 September) on all patients who attended our OU.
Patients completed two types of questionnaire (all anonymous and voluntary).
All the questions had 5 possible answers, arranged in an ordinal Likert-type scale (1: completely disagree to 5: completely agree) and a section for comments/suggestions.
Overall satisfaction was assessed with a previously validated questionnaire, including three sections (patient satisfaction, pharmaceutical care and surroundings).
The patient’s opinion about the changes was assessed with a satisfaction survey designed by us that contained three direct questions.
Results A total of 432 patients completed the questionnaires (response rate of 99%). 5% with no education, 43% with basic education, 52% with college education.
Direct questions about the changes revealed that the worst valued was the new location (3.2 ± 0.55), the best was the extension of opening hours (4.8 ± 0.22).
The most frequent suggestion was to open the OU in the afternoons (22%).
Conclusion Overall, a high degree of satisfaction was observed.
We identified significant opportunities for improvement, some of which could be implemented in the short term, such as the signalling of the consultation. Others will be dealt with in the long term, such as the demand for continued care in the afternoon.
Reference
E. Izquierdo-García. Satisfacción percibida por pacientes del área de atención a pacientes externos como método mejora dela calidad. Rev Calid Asist 2011;26(3):161–7
ReferenceNo conflict of interest.