ASSESSMENT OF PATIENT SATISFACTION OF OUT-PATIENT SERVICES AT SOME HEALTH CARE FACILITIES IN THUA THIEN HUE PROVINCE

Patient satisfaction has been considered an important metric to measure and improve the quality of health care services. Aims: This study aimed to capture patient satisfaction of the quality of services and explore the disparities in patients’ satisfaction by different type of health facilities. Methods: A cross-sectional investigation was conducted in 886 participants following the guidelines of Ministry of Health on assessment of patients’ satisfaction of out-patient services with 5 main indices: the average patient satisfaction score (PSI), the average patient satisfaction percentage, comprehensive satisfaction index (CSI), percentage of continuing to utilize health services, and percentage of perceiving health care expectaion. Results: The PSI of outpatient services among all partcipants reached 3.75 out of 5 points, corresponding to a satisfaction percentage of 64.8%. Of which, the PSI on different attributes of healthcare settings varied from 3.69/5 (lowest for district-level health facilities) to 3.92/5 (highest for private health settings). CSI was at 13.5%, the percentage of continuing to utilize health services reached 96.2% and people perceived 81.5% of their expectation. Primary care facilities have lower levels of satisfaction than the provincial, central and private facilities (p<0.05). Conclusion: Robust efforts should be taken in investing the infrastructure and performance of primary care settings, and improving the administrative procedures of public health settings. Furthermore, local authority should pay attention to promote the awareness of community to availability of health services at primary care settings.