ABSTRACT
Objective: In The last two decades, nursing homes for elderly have expanded tremendously. Client satisfaction is one of the most important indicators of service quality delivered by institutes and organizations. This study was carried out to measure client satisfaction in the private nursing homes of Golestan, Mazandaran, Semnan and Northern Khorasan Provinces in 2012
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 89 participants from all 14 nursing homes located in the pre-mentioned provinces who met the inclusion criteria including age 60 years or older, ability to communicate, Abbreviated Mental Test scores of 6 or higher, and at least 6 months stay duration were recruited by the method of census and interviewed. Data was gathered using the questionnaire of Assessing Elderly Residents' Satisfaction of the Delivered Services in Nursing Homes. In order to analyze data, statistical parametric t-test, ANOVA, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal- Wallis test, Spearman correlation coefficient and SPSS software [version 17], were used
Results: Mean scores showed that satisfaction with the physical care [3.55] and physical environment [3.77] were higher than of satisfaction with psychological care [3.00] and social care [3.26]. The mean score of overall satisfaction with the services was 3.40 and indicative of satisfaction in the levels of moderate to good. There was a significant relation between mean scores of satisfaction and the way which clients had been admitted to nursing homes [p<0.002]
Conclusion: Lower levels of satisfaction with psychological and social care in the nursing homes points to the need of paying more attention toward these two care dimensions. Considering the significant relationship between self commitment and the level of satisfaction, psychological preparedness of older clients before committing them to nursing homes may play a role in their satisfaction with the services delivered in nursing home