Adult Patients’ Satisfaction with Inpatient Nursing Care and Associated Factors in an Ethiopian Referral Hospital, Northeast, Ethiopia

Introduction. Patient satisfaction with nursing care is considered as an important factor in explaining patients’ perceptions of service quality. Care assessed to be high quality according to clinical, economic, or other provider-defined criteria is far from ideal if as a result of that care the patient is unhappy or dissatisfied. Objective. The aim of this study was to assess adult patients’ satisfaction with inpatient nursing care and associated factors in Dessie Referral Hospital, Northeast Ethiopia. Methods. Institution based quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted among patients admitted in medical, surgical, orthopedics, gynecology, and ophthalmology wards of the hospital from March 24 to April 30, 2013. All admitted patients who stayed in the study wards for at least two days during the data collection time were interviewed. Newcastle Satisfaction with Nursing Scale questionnaire was used to collect the data and was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Odds ratios with their 95% confidence intervals and p values in a multiple logistic regression were used to identify factors associated with patient satisfaction with nursing care. Result. The overall patient satisfaction was 52.5%. Respondents’ sex, age, admission ward, self-reported health status, and class of admission were the variables significantly associated with patient satisfaction with nursing care. Conclusion and Recommendation. The rate of patient satisfaction with nursing care was found to be low in this study. Being female, younger age group (18–30 years), good self-reported current health status, being admitted in ophthalmology ward, and first class of admission were significantly associated with better patient satisfaction with nursing care. In-service training programs for nurses, with special emphasis on communication skills, are recommended.