PATIENTS’ PERCEPTION AND SATISFACTION WITH HEALTH CARE SERVICES

ABSTRACT

Primary healthcare forms the bedrock of the healthcare services of the country. The quality of healthcare available to the populace determines the health status of the country and is the best indicator for the level of social development of the country. The health system of Nigeria has gathered much attention in terms of structure and services right from pre-colonial times. Patient’s satisfaction is thus a key marker for the quality of healthcare delivery and an important indicator for evaluation and improvement of healthcare services. Research has shown that patient’s evaluation of quality of health care services in developed countries cannot be favourably compared with that of developing countries such as Nigeria. This study aims to assess patient perception and satisfaction with health care services at some primary care facilities in Benin city, Edo state. This study was carried out among patients visiting two(2) selected primary health care centre in Benin city, Edo state. Geographically these selected health care centre include; Ugbekun and Oluku primary health care centre in Benin city. Data was collected using a self-structured questionnaire. The questionnaire has four parts. Part A captures patients’ demographics; while Parts B, C, and D focuses on patients perception of care and satisfaction comprising of a total of twenty nine well-structured questions. A total of 200 questionnaires were completely filled and returned. Satisfaction was measured from the following domains: patient waiting time, patient–staff communication, patient–staff relationship, cost of care, etc.The data was analyzed using SPSS software. The age group of respondents were between 18 to 35years and above. Findings of this study shows that majority of the respondents are dissatisfied with the health care service while less than one third of them are satisfied. Evaluation of perception of health care services showed that majority have poor perception, while less than one third have good perception. In this study, the highest recorded mean was observed for item on the cost of registration and treatment is quite cheap with a mean score of 3.18, while the lowest was recorded on the item a lot of available hands to run the day-to-day activities of the health centre with a mean score of 1.90. The study however also identified that there is a significant association between perception and level of satisfaction. It is therefore recommended that Government and multinational agencies should make concerted effort to support primary health care to provide better quality of care.

KEYWORDS: Primary health care, Health care services, Patient’s satisfaction, Patient perception.