title: Patients' perceptions as an indicator of quality of care, in Greek patients with inflammatory bowel disease.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The chronic nature of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and its frequent relapses result to a considerable utilization of healthcare resources. Current approaches for the assessment of quality of care are based on the perception of the healthcare provider, which may be different from that of the healthcare user. The purpose of this study was to assess IBD patients' satisfaction, as an indicator of healthcare quality, with the use of a validated instrument (QUOTE-IBD). Ninety-five patients with IBD completed the GR-QUOTE-IBD questionnaire, for the assessment of patient's perception, regarding the quality of the perceived care.
  
  
  RESULTS
  According to this evaluation suboptimal care was observed in the dimensions of accommodation, accessibility and information (mean values: 8.92, 8.94 and 8.95, respectively). In the subgroup analysis significant differences were observed in relation to patient's age groups and educational level. Differences were also noted in relation to the disease duration (longer and shorter than 5 years).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The assessment of the quality of health care, based on patients' perception, revealed quality problems in the dimensions of accommodation, accessibility and information. According to subgroup analysis, disease type, educational status, age and disease duration play an important role in the formation of patients' expectations from the healthcare system.
authors.affiliation: Gastroenterology Department, University General Hospital of Heraklion, Heraklion, Crete, Greece.
authors.forename: Athanasios G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Pallis
authors.forename: Petros A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Kostagiolas
authors.forename: Ioannis A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Mouzas
authors.forename: Dimitris
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Niakas
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006115:Greece; D006801:Humans; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology*; D019984:Quality Indicators, Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires