Patient satisfaction - Essay Example

PATIENT SATISFACTION Patient satisfaction refers to methods designed to determine the level of service being offered to patients in terms of quality, interpersonal relationship, availability and conduct of the health services providers. A number of tools have been developed to measure satisfaction levels of the patient such as use of questionnaire, surveys, direct interviews with patients and holding of forums and seminars with the patients so as to discuss general issues affecting them thus establishing how they are satisfied by the services.

Patient satisfaction questionnaire is used to measure the satisfaction level. In developing the questionnaire, one must focus one finding focus on achieving three set of goals namely provision of quality health care to patients, treating them with courtesy as well as respect and making the health services affordable to the patients. The questions to be used in the process should thus focus on the three issues namely quality, interpersonal and accessibility. The question should be brief with careful wording so as to ensure that they are not biased, vague or enclosed.

There is need to use a consistent scale while developing the questions such as likert scale, 10-point scale or the four point scale. The use of scale assists in the ensuring accuracy and precision in the determination of the satisfaction level of the patient. Anonymity should be highly emphasized as this will allow patients to give their honest opinion. The entire process need to be anonymous and the forms should be filled in private and the questions need to be open-ended so as to make the entire process as flexible as possible (Shelton, 2000).

ReferenceShelton, P. J. (2000). Measuring and improving patient satisfaction. Gaithersburg, Md: Aspen Publishers.Article link: http://www.aafp.org/fpm/1999/0100/p40.html