[Health care satisfaction. From the perspective of patients].
BACKGROUND
patient's health care satisfaction is the most important element in the evaluation of the health care quality. Nevertheless, there is still no agreement regarding which aspects from this phenomenon should be measured.


OBJECTIVE
to describe which aspects integrate health care satisfaction from the patient perspective.


METHODS
a descriptive study was held with a qualitative technique. The cultural aspects were determined in the patients first medical examination in Mexico's General Hospital trough two structured interviews. Multidimensional Scaling and the Smith's Index was used for the data analysis.


RESULTS
95 patients were been interviewed, 71.4 % were women, and according to the statistic method used, the 52 concepts mentioned by the patients were integrated in two dimensions. The dimension "the Process" included patients expectations regarding the physician's commitment to their healing and constant training process. The dimension "the Structure" was concerned with the administrative management of the hospital. Patients also pointed out the need to improve their interaction with the nurse personnel.


CONCLUSIONS
health care satisfaction from the patients perspective is based upon attitude, and the physician's commitment and his/her developmental skills in benefit of the patient's healing.
Del Pilar Lavielle-Sotomayor
María
M
Unidad de Investigación en Epidemiología Clínica, Hospital de Especialidades, Centro Médico Nacional Siglo XXI, Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, Distrito Federal, Mexico. pilaviel@yahoo.com
Cerón-Ruiz
Maricela
M
Tovar-Larrea
Patricia
P
Bustamante-Rojano
Juan José
JJ
D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008800:Mexico; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires