Assessment of Student’s Satisfaction and Quality of Patient Care under the Nigerian Tertiary Institutions Social Health Insurance Programme (TISHIP)

Abstract

Patients’ satisfaction is considered as one of the desired outcomes of health care and it is directly related with utilization of health services, it has emerged as an increasingly important parameter in the assessment of quality health care; hence, healthcare facility performance can be best assessed by measuring the level of patient’s satisfaction. Nonetheless, there is no adequate information on users’ perception about the quality service provided in the clinic after the implementation of this health insurance scheme, The focus on student’s satisfaction with the health insurance scheme's service provision for years of active implementation highlights the importance of monitoring and evaluation, a hospital may be well organized, ideally located and well equipped but it will fail in its responsibility to provide quality care if patient satisfaction is not of a high caliber. The objective of this study is to assess students’ satisfaction by identifying the basic elements of the service which students complain about, are satisfied or dissatisfied with or which otherwise affect their utilization of or response to health care and the quality of patient care under this scheme, with particular reference to ABU sick bay (Kongo campus).This is a cross sectional descriptive study that was conducted from February 2013-Febuary 2014 on a sample of 68 enrollees of the health services of the university using systematic random sampling technique. Data was collected using structured questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS for windows version 20.0. Statistical tests were employed where necessary at 0.10 level of significance. Each satisfaction item was scored in a five-point likert scale ordinal response, which was converted to percentage scale response. Satisfaction was measured from the following domains: warm reception, patient waiting time, provider’s attitude towards the patients and the general cleanliness of the hospital for patients care. The overall level of satisfaction score of the respondents was 57.1%. Specifically, the respondents expressed satisfaction with: warm reception 58.7%, Doctors attitude 74.60%, Nurses attitude 55.6%, General attitude of other sick bay staff 55.6% , general cleanliness of the sick bay 74.6% and dissatisfaction with general waiting time 39.683%. This study has shown that the overall student’s satisfaction with the quality of services provided was very good with patient-provider relationship rated highest and waiting time rated lowest. There is need to improve on the current level of student’s satisfaction while effort should be made to address the domains of dissatisfaction.

Keywords: Health Insurance, Tertiary institution social health insurance program, Patient Satisfaction, Quality of care.