The Importance-Satisfaction Study of Hospital Foodservice Encounters at the Elderly Health-Care Facilities

ABSTRACT

Institutional care is often necessary for the health and well-being of the elderly. Good quality foodservice provided at long-term care facilities not only includes patients satisfaction but also cares for good health, contributing to the stability of foodservice management. The purpose of this study was to assess the importance and satisfaction attributes of foodservice management by hospitalized elderly patients. The data were collected via questionnaire by a one-to-one interview with 194 hospitalized elderly patients in six different hospitals. According to the results of dependent t-tests, overall mean scores for the importance attributes (3.96) and satisfactory attributes (3.83) were significantly different (p<0.001). As indicated by the patients, the recognized importance attributes were the kindness of foodservice personnel (4.19), kind smiles by foodservice personnel (4.16), and kind speaking by foodservice personnel (4.12). The most recognized satisfaction attributes were kindness of foodservice personnel (4.36), bedside meal service by foodservice personnel (4.25), kind speaking by foodservice personnel (4.24), kind smiles by foodservice personnel (4.24), and sanitary uniforms worn by foodservice personnel (4.21). These results suggest that the above encounter attributes (importance-satisfaction) would be useful tools for hospital foodservices to adopt, in order to control foodservice quality and satisfy the nutritional needs of elderly patients.