title: Race/ethnicity and patient satisfaction. Using the appropriate method to test for perceived differences in care.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine whether an established patient satisfaction scale commonly used in the primary care setting is sufficiently sensitive to identify racial/ethnic differences in satisfaction that may exist; to compare a composite indicator of overall patient satisfaction with a 4-item satisfaction scale that measures only the quality of the direct physician-patient interaction.
  
  
  METHODS
  Real-time survey of patients during a primary care office visit.
  
  
  METHODS
  Private medical offices in a generally affluent area of northern California.
  
  
  METHODS
  Five hundred thirty-seven primary care patients selected at random from those entering a medical office.
  
  
  METHODS
  Patient satisfaction using 1) a composite, 9-item satisfaction scale (VSQ-9); and 2) a 4-item subset of that scale that measures only satisfaction with direct physician care.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The 9-item, composite scale identified no significant difference in patient satisfaction between white and nonwhite patients, after controlling for patient demographics and other aspects of the visit. The 4-item, physician-specific scale indicated that nonwhite patients were less satisfied than white patients with their direct interaction with the physicians included in the study (P </=.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Measurements of patient satisfaction that use multi-item, composite indicators should also include focused comparisons of satisfaction directly with the care provided by the physician. In measurements of patient satisfaction, patient race/ethnicity should be included as an explanatory variable. The results also confirm earlier findings that factors external to the direct physician-patient interaction can have substantial effects on patients' perceptions of that interaction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2160, USA. barr@stanford.edu
authors.forename: Donald A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Barr
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology; D002140:California; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys / Q000379:methods; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009819:Office Visits; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000208:ethnology*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D017064:Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology