Patient’s Knowledge and Satisfaction with health Care of a Tertiary Care Hospital Situated in Rural area of Northern India (Haryana)

Abstract

Background: Nowadays health care quality is a universal concern. The most appropriate method to measure
a client’s experiences about available hospital services is a patient satisfaction survey. Present study aimed
to assess patient’s knowledge and satisfaction regarding health care.
Method: 330 patients were selected by purposive sampling technique attending various outdoor and indoor
departments of the selected hospital. Self-structured checklist and three-point rating scale each containing a
total 50 sets of items used to assess knowledge and satisfaction. The reliability coefficient for the knowledge
tool was 0.87 by KR 20 and satisfaction was found 0.85 by Cronbach’s Alpha.
Result: Study results showed that more than half (52.4%) and (60.6%) patients had very good level of
knowledge and 76.4% & 67.5% of patients were satisfied with overall health care. Item wise distribution
of satisfaction among patients reveals that “physician gave follow up instructions to the patient properly
(78.2%)”, “OPD card facility (78.2%),” and “hospital food facility for patients (75.2%)” was found ranked
1st with the highest satisfaction, whereas “Free of cost availability of drugs”, “long queues during OPD card
registration process” was found ranked lowest. A significant low positive correlation found between mean
knowledge and satisfaction scores regarding health care services as evident by computed ‘r’ value (0.38).
Conclusion: Using these necessary responses from the patients, various shortcomings can be pointed out
and notify to hospital administration for improvement of the health care.