Determinants and level of patient satisfaction on clinical laboratory services

Abstract

A component of effective health care services is the measurement of patient satisfaction. It aids in the evaluation of health care services from the patient point of view and facilitates the identification of problem areas and generates ideas for resolving these problems. Monitoring patient satisfaction is an important and useful quality improvement tool for clinical laboratories in particular and healthcare organizations in general. There is an increasing interest to improve the quality of laboratory services world-wide including in many resource poor countries.

The purpose of this study was to assess the determinants and level of satisfaction on laboratory services in a selected hospital in Trivandrum. An institution based cross sectional survey design was used to conduct the present study. The study population included all adult patients above the age of 20 years who avail the laboratory services for more than two times from medicine, surgery and gynecology/obstetric departments. Data were collected using a pre-tested and structured questionnaire which was administered by the researcher. The questionnaire included satisfaction indicators which were related to sociopersonal characteristics of the study participants and different dimensions of laboratory services.

Average age of the study population was 44.7 ±12.5 years and age ranges from 20-69 years. 29.3% of the subjects were in the age group of 40-49 years.  The overall satisfaction of patients with laboratory service was 81.4% where 48.1% had an average level of satisfaction. Only 9.3% were very much satisfied with services received from the laboratory. 40% of the patients have good satisfaction with the registration services at the laboratory. Nearly half of the study participants had an average level of satisfaction with regard to time spent on registration (50.7%), facilities in the waiting area (53.3%), cleanliness of the laboratory (40%), waiting time for taking sample (49.3%) and atmosphere of the laboratory.

Nearly half of the study participants had poor satisfaction with regard to the toilet facility available at the laboratory which was the highest dissatisfaction observed in the study. A significant association was found between sociopersonal variables like age and duration of visit to avail laboratory services with level of satisfaction on laboratory services (p<0.01).             

Patient satisfaction is a paramount indicator of the quality of service delivered by the health care service especially the diagnostic services. Further study with more influencing factors and broad environmental variables are  recommended.