ABSTRACT

This study is a descriptive survey research design and was conducted amonginpatients in Central Hospital, Benin City. In this study, the level of satisfaction of patients with nursing care received as well as the factors affecting the level of satisfaction of patients with the nursing care receivedwere assessed using structured questionnaires designed by the researcher. Convenient sampling technique was used in sampling 111adult inpatients across five wards in Central Hospital. The research instrument used in this study was validated by the researcher’s supervisor and yielded a reliability score of 0.81 during a pilot study conducted. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentages, means, and standard deviation were used to analyse the data obtained. The two research hypotheses in this study were tested using Chi-square statistics tested at the 0.05 significance level. The study findings revealed that there is a poor level of satisfaction among patients in Central Hospital as regards the nursing care received. Factors such as patients’ expectations regarding nursing care, physical environment, nurses’ communication and information, interpersonal relations between nurse and patient, nurses' medical technical competence, caring behaviour of nurses, nurses' time to talk, and nurses' response rate were found to affect patients’ satisfaction with the nursing care received.This study thus concluded that the need and expectation of a significant proportion of patients in Central hospital in Benin City has not been met.Based on the study findings, the study thus recommends that Hospitals should perform periodic surveys on patients need, expectations and hospital so as to design the nursing care accordingly. Also, Nurses should attend and respond to patient as soon as possible because long waiting can decrease satisfaction of patient. Keywords: patient satisfaction, nursing care, inpatients