Factors Affect Patients Satisfaction in Emergency Departments in Palestine

Abstract

Background: Emergency care can make an important contribution to reduce avoidable deaths and disabilities. Assessing health care quality and improving patient satisfaction have become a global health-related issue, particularly among health care suppliers and customers of health care due to increase of customers’ knowledge and awareness regarding health care services. Patient satisfaction is a patient’s perception of care received compared with the care expected. Patient satisfaction was considered as an essential indicators of emergency care. Methods: A descriptive and cross-sectional design was utilized in this study. All patients above 10 years who attended private and governmental hospitals in west bank for all potential health conditions were recruited (n=1150 patients). The Arabic version of the self-administered questionnaire of "Brief Emergency Department Patient Satisfaction Scale (BEPSS)" was used. Results: The majority of the subjects was men in (21-39) year old category, and were living in villages. More than half of the subjects were attendees of ED in private hospitals during night shifts. Duration of subjects’ waiting to see physicians and nurses was less than 15 min. Subjects were satisfied highly as ranked ordered in for different items in the BEPSS scale domains. There were significant differences between groups on BEPSS related to educational level and place of resident (F=6.14, p=≤0.00) and (F=3.50, p=0.03) respectively. Conclusion: This study shown that overall patients’ satisfaction score was 3.77 over 5 and this reflect an acceptable level of patients satisfaction Emergency hospital services and healthcare providers in Palestine.

Keywords: Emergency Department (ED), Palestine, Patients Satisfaction.