Patient satisfaction at health centres in Trinidad and Tobago

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to identify background characteristics of health centre users in Trinidad and Tobago and their perceptions of the services provided. Multi-staged sampling was used to select 1,500 health centre users throughout the country. Data were obtained using structured interviews conducted on regular clinic days. Results show that there is an overwhelmingly large percentage of unemployed persons (80.4%) and women (75.9%) among the users of health centres. The elderly is well represented, with 25.4 percent of the sample being over 60 years of age. Also, occupational status of family wage earners and educational attainment levels of respondents reflect a disproportionately higher number from lower socio-economic groupings among health centre users. On the other hand, proportions of different ethnic and religious groups among the respondents bear a striking similarity to the general population of Trinidad and Tobago. Respondents appear to be generally satisfied with the services of the health centres. When the categories for "satisfied' and "very satisfied' were combined, results show that 73.0% of respondents were satisfied with the comfort of the health centre, 81.7% with the ease and convenience of getting to the health centre and 67.4% with the medical care received at the health centre. According to respondents' opinions, the services in greatest need of improvement are the pharmacy and doctor services, especially through reducing the long waiting period. When the doctors, nurses and pharmacists were compared with respect to "courtesy and consideration', "Skills and Competence' and "advice provided', results show that the generally high levels of satisfaction are remarkably similar in all three cases.

PIP: A survey was conducted of 1500 health centers in Trinidad and Tobago to evaluate the impact of health centers on clients and characteristics of clients. Most clients belonged to disadvantaged groups: 80.4% were unemployed and 75.9% were women. 25.4% of clients were elderly. Among employed clients, the occupational status of the main wage earner tended to be low (e.g., 16.4% skilled manual, 15.6% unskilled manual, and 13.2% lower non-manual). Only 1.8% of clients had achieved a tertiary educational level. The ethnicity and religious affiliation of clients reflected that of the general population. 73% of clients considered the health centers to be comfortable. 81.7% were satisfied with the ease and convenience of visiting the health center. 67.4% considered the medical care received to be satisfactory. 74.2% spent 2-6 hours at the health center, largely due to insufficient health personnel, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical supplies. Thus, the lack of resources made it difficult to service the needs of the health center clientele. The long waiting period may have been inconvenient for employed persons. 47% of clients were unwilling to pay for health care. The services most in need of improvement were pharmacies (35.1%) and physicians' care (27.4%). Patients tended to rate physicians, nurses, and pharmacists equally high in terms of satisfaction with courtesy and consideration, skills and competence, and advice provided.