Factors associated with patient satisfaction in an outpatient hospital pharmacy

Abstract

Objective: To analyse the factors leading to greater satisfaction among patients attending the outpatient hospital pharmacy (OPh).

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted of patients attending the OPh of a 1250-bed university hospital. A self-administered questionnaire for measuring outpatients' satisfaction was developed. Global satisfaction was measured on a scale of 1 to 10. Indices of perceived quality for accessibility, interpersonal professional-patient relationship and the convenience of the process were modelled through a principal component analysis using varimax rotation. The relationship between the principal components and overall satisfaction was evaluated using regression analysis.

Results: A questionnaire-based survey was conducted between May and June 2015. A total of 509 valid responses (86.9% response rate) were collected from the OPh. The overall satisfaction score was 7.81 (95% CI 7.59 to 8.04). The principal component analysis produced two components that explained 62.1% of the variance. The first component (CP1) contained questions related to the adequacy of the resources and services. The second component (CP2) contained questions about interpersonal professional-patient relationship. An additional unit in the CP2 was associated with a 3.23 increased risk of having higher satisfaction scores, while an increase of an additional unit in CP1 was associated with a 1.93 increased risk of having higher satisfaction scores.

Conclusions: Our study shows that the factor which predicts the satisfaction of patients who come to the OPh is the quality of care provided by pharmacists-in particular, information provided, resolution of doubts, personal attention and time devoted to the patient.

Keywords: Outpatients Hospital Pharmacy; health care provision.; health care quality; patient satisfaction; pharmaceutical care.

Figure 1

Component plot in rotated space. In the graph the 10 variables are represented according to the varimax rotation. Component 1 is identified with the ‘facilities’ (variables A, (C, I, G) and component 2 is identified with ‘personal treatment’ (variables D, (B, K, F). Variables J and H could not be explained through this analysis. The variables are as follows: A, suitable resolution of patient doubts; B, appropriate opening hours of clinics; C, appropriate information provided by the pharmacist; D, comfortableness of the waiting room; F, time between witting up the prescription and dispensing the treatment; G, pharmacist’s time dedicated to the patient; H, period of time patient is in the waiting room; I, pharmacist’s personal treatment of the patient; J, comfort of the waiting room; K, clear signalling of the outpatient hospital pharmacy.