Study of satisfaction of diabetic patients attending the diabetic clinic at primary health centers in Abha city, Saudi Arabia.

ABSTRACT

Background: With the ageing of the population and the advances in the treatment of chronic diseases, the teamwork in the context of chronic diseases needs to be re-examined. Patients with chronic diseases have to pay repeated visits to PHC clinics, usually for the rest of their lives. These patients are usually more difficult to satisfy. Patient satisfaction is the extent to which the patients feel that their needs and expectations are being met by the service provided. It has been a widely recognized indicator of quality of care in medical practice. Aims & Objective: This study aims to assess patients’ satisfaction with the main aspects of primary health care provided at the Chronic Diseases Clinic, identify areas of health care that show low satisfaction and Identify determinants of patients’ satisfaction. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out among a representative random sample of registered patients, at randomly selected two PHCCs in Abha, KSA. The tool used for data collection consisted of two parts; the first part was about the personal information of the participants, while the second part was the Arabic version of Modified patient satisfaction questionnaire (PSQ-18). Results: The study include 600 patients, almost one fourth of participants aged above 60 years, while 37% of them aged 50-60 years and 38.7% of them aged below 50 years. Of the respondents, 13% were dissatisfied, while 87% were satisfied (i.e., 44% were moderately satisfied and 43% were highly satisfied).This study revealed significantly lower levels of satisfaction among diabetic patients who attended at Al-Qabel PHCC than those who attended at Al-Manhal PHCC, i.e. pre-clinic items (67.7% vs. 76%, respectively); clinic items (81% vs. 92.3%, p<0.001); post-clinic items (86.3% vs. 92.3%, p<0.001) and overall satisfaction (81.3% vs. 92.7%, p<0.001. Regarding diabetic patients’ grades of overall satisfaction, the highest proportion of dissatisfaction was observed among patients aged <50 years, males, lower levels of education and higher monthly income. Unemployed patients expressed significantly higher grades of satisfaction than employed patients (p=0.005). Conclusion: This study concluded that diabetic patients’ satisfaction grade was least toward pre-clinic (i.e., PHCC accessibility, availability of parking areas, comfortable waiting area, short waiting times and measurement of patient’s vital signs before meeting the physician) followed by post-clinic items (i.e., performing the necessary routine investigations, availability and accessibility of labs within the PHCC, availability of medications within the PHCC’s pharmacy).Patients’ characteristics associated with less satisfaction include younger age, male gender, higher education, employment and higher monthly income.