Patient satisfaction in relation to age, health status and other background factors: a model for comparisons of care units.
OBJECTIVE
To analyse the relationship between patient satisfaction and background factors such as age, gender, health status and pain. In addition, to use background factors to create less biased ranking in comparisons of patient satisfaction between medical specialities.


METHODS
A questionnaire was sent by post to patients who had recently received inpatient care at a hospital within the County of Ostergötland, Sweden. The questionnaire contained 33 questions, 21 of which concerned the quality of health care and patient satisfaction.


METHODS
Inpatient departments at all four hospitals in the County of Ostergötland, Sweden.


METHODS
All patients discharged from the hospital during a period of 6 weeks. Approximately 3400 patients aged 1-94 years responded to the questionnaire, resulting in a response rate of 69%.


METHODS
Patient satisfaction index score (PSI).


RESULTS
Of the background factors tested, patient age had the greatest explanatory value regarding the PSI, closely followed by experiencing anxiety during admission. With regard to variations in the PSI, about 20% could be explained by the background factors taken as a whole. Gender did not correlate with the PSI, although males were somewhat more satisfied than females. PSI scores differed among medical specialities and, interestingly, when age and other background factors were controlled for, the picture changed regarding the medical speciality that received the best PSI score.


CONCLUSIONS
The change in ranking among medical specialities after adjustment for background factors emphasizes the importance of including background factors in patient satisfaction analyses in order to obtain less biased comparisons.
Rahmqvist
M
M
Center for Medical Technology Assessment (CMT), Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University, Sweden. mikra@cmt.liu.se
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D019985:Benchmarking; D015982:Bias; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys / Q000379:methods*; D006304:Health Status; D015285:Hospital-Patient Relations; D006761:Hospitals / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008511:Medicine / Q000145:classification / Q000592:standards; D008875:Middle Aged; D010351:Patient Discharge; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012737:Sex Factors; D013038:Specialization; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden