Clients' Satisfaction with Maternal and Child Health Care Service at El - Minia Governorate, Egypt

Abstract

Background: Health care services are being provided by health facilities to the communitywith the objective of fulfilling their satisfaction but sometimes the target population can notbe always satisfied. Client satisfaction measurement is a routine tool in health care facilities toassess the quality of service and know whether it meets the clients' expectations. Aim: Ourstudy was conducted to assess the satisfaction of clients receiving maternal and child healthservices at El-Minia MCH facilities in order to elicit suggestion for improving the services.Research design: It is a cross-sectional descriptive study Settings: This study was conductedduring April-October 2010, at El-Minia governorate, in Upper Egypt, 234 Km south to Cairo,Egypt. In El-Minia governorate, 233 different health facilities are providing MCH care (10urban centers and 223 rural health units). Sample: The target sample size 300 adult women.Tool: An interview questionnaire was developed by the authors and filled out from theanswers of the female clients who attended the services at El-Minia MCH facilities during aperiod from April to October 2010. Results: As regard to client satisfaction with the providedMCH services, 56.3% of the clients were not satisfied while 43.7% of clients accepted theservices and described it as good. Most of the clients (57%) expressed their responses as notsatisfactory regarding the assessment of physicians and 66.7 for nursing staff. Conclusions:The majority of the interviewed women were not satisfied with most of the aspects thatinclude dealing with the health care providers at all the urban and rural MCH facilities of El-Minia governorate. Consequently, the policy makers and health care providers must revisetheir quality and quantity of services, and accordingly actions must be taken to improve themto meet the clients' expectations. Recommendations: In order to overcome this low level ofsatisfaction we recommend holding regular mothers' meetings inviting opinions andsuggestions from the clients. On the other hand, adoption of an extensive national educationaland training program for the proper dealing and patients’ rights among health care serviceproviders. Moreover, in the university education for medical and nursing students, there mustbe special emphasis on patients’ rights, human dealings and quality of service that satisfies allhealth care clients.