ABSTRACT
We interviewed 872 outpatients who came for Social Security Service of Siriraj Hospital. On average, this was the 1.88th time the patients had come for treatment. Most of them were younger than 40, 55 percent had finished elementary education. Most were workers in factories and the average wage was 4,131 baht/month. Female:male ratio was 6:4 and about half of them were married. Sixty-nine percent of the patients did not know what disease caused their illness. The average cost of traveling from home to the hospital was 129.65 baht. Traveling time was less than 30 minutes in 38.5 percent, 30 minutes to 1 hour in 28.7 percent, 1-2 hours in 25.8 percent. There was no problem in coming for treatment in 87.4 percent of cases; in the group who had a problem, the problem was the long distance from home to the hospital. The average time that the patients spent waiting in front of the registration card room was 10.3 minutes, examination room 43.5 minutes and pharmacy room 19.8 minutes, total waiting time 73.6 minutes. Before examination, 88.3 percent were satisfied that they were insured with Siriraj Hospital. After examination and pharmacy rooms, 78.7 percent were satisfied. Eighty-two percent answered that there was no aspect they wanted Siriraj Hospital to improve in. We investigated the satisfaction of these outpatients by using rating-scale questionnaire, 12 questions for registration card room, 14 questions for examination room and 8 questions for pharmacy. Using step-wise multiple regression, we found that the satisfaction score of each room was 81.1, 78.1 and 74.6 problem in coming for treatment and wages. For the examination room the were sex, work character, education level and traveling expense. Fore pharmacy they were waiting time and age.