Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Mar 16;10(3):548.
doi: 10.3390/healthcare10030548.

Assessment of Satisfaction with Health Services among Prisoners-Descriptive Study

Anna Rogalska  1 , Kamil Barański  2 , Żaneta Rachwaniec-Szczecińska  3 , Tomasz Holecki  1 , Monika Bąk-Sosnowska  3
Affiliations

Assessment of Satisfaction with Health Services among Prisoners-Descriptive Study

Anna Rogalska et al. Healthcare (Basel). .

Abstract

Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the access of prisoners to healthcare services, as well as the level of satisfaction with the provided services and health assessment among prisoners.

Methods: The research was conducted in one of the penitentiary centers in Poland among people jailed between 1 January to 31 January 2020. The response rate of the self-administrated questionnaire was 52.05% (469/901) participants. There were 389 men and 77 women.

Results: Prisoners assessed access to health services including GP doctors, specialist doctors, dentists, and hospitals in 3 categories: "bad" ranged: 27.03-67.60%; "medium" ranged: 22.54-53.57%; "good" ranged: 7.02-33.96% depending on the type of arrest, but no statistical significance was demonstrated. Satisfaction with the health services defined as "bad" ranged: 25.00-61.11%; "medium" ranged: 18.97-55.56%; "good" ranged: 5.56-34.62% depending on the type of arrest but no statistical significance was demonstrated. Of 469 prisoners, 215 prisoners (45.84%) declared no addictions. The frequency of addiction does not differ depending on the place/type of punishment served (p = 0.9). In turn, 317 prisoners (68%) declared no chronic diseases.

Conclusions: Most of the prisoners described access to health services as "bad", except female prisoners from a semi-open facility. In turn, satisfaction with healthcare services was most often assessed as "bad", except for temporarily arrested men and female prisoners from a semi-open facility.

Keywords: access to healthcare services in prison; assessment of satisfaction with health services in prison; healthcare in prison; the health of prisoners.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Subjective assessment of access to healthcare among prisoners (“bad”, “medium”, “good”) (test Chi-square).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Satisfaction with the health services (“bad”, “medium”, “good”) (test Chi-square).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Statista Research & Analysis Countries with the Largest Number of Prisoners as of July 2021. [(accessed on 12 January 2022)]. Available online: https://www.statista.com/
    1. The World Prison Brief. [(accessed on 12 January 2022)]. Available online: http://www.prisonstudies.org/
    1. Fair H., Walmsley R. World Prison Population List. 13th ed. World Prison Brief; London, UK: 2021.
    1. Levesque J.F., Harris M.F., Russell G. Patient-centred access to health care: Conceptualising access at the interface of health systems and populations. Int. J. Equity Health. 2013;12:18. doi: 10.1186/1475-9276-12-18. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Daniels N. Equity of access to health care: Some conceptual and ethical issues. Milbank Meml. Fund Q. Health Soc. 1982;60:51–81. doi: 10.2307/3349700. - DOI - PubMed