Abstract
BackgroundMost health systems provide the most specialized, and presumably also the highest quality of care at a central level. This study assessed parental satisfaction and its determinants in the context of neonatal care in a provincial as well as a national hospital of Vietnam.MethodsIn this cross-sectional quantitative study, parents of 340 preterm infants admitted to neonatal care units of a national and a provincial hospital in 2018 were interviewed using structured questionnaires. Unadjusted and adjusted linear regression models were used to assess the relationship between parental satisfaction and hospital rank.ResultsThe mean parental satisfaction score was 3.74 at the provincial, and 3.56 at the national hospital. These satisfaction differences persisted when parent and child characteristics were adjusted for in multivariate analysis. Longer length of stay and worsening infant health status were associated with parents reporting lower levels of satisfaction with the quality of care being provided at the healthcare facility.ConclusionsThis study suggests that parents of preterm infants admitted in a provincial hospital were more satisfied with the quality of care received than those in a specialized national hospital. Length of stay and infant health status were the two most important determinants of level of parental satisfaction.
Highlights
Most health systems provide the most specialized, and presumably the highest quality of care at a central level
Participants We interviewed parents of preterm babies admitted to the two neonatal care units for 6 months, from January to June of 2018
After 6 months of data collection, data from 340 parents were included in the study, 90 of which had infants admitted to Thanh Hoa Pediatric Hospital (26.5%) and 250 parents with infants admitted to Vietnam National Children’s Hospital (73.5%)
Summary
Most health systems provide the most specialized, and presumably the highest quality of care at a central level. This study assessed parental satisfaction and its determinants in the context of neonatal care in a provincial as well as a national hospital of Vietnam. Perceived quality of health care services plays an important role in the development and improvement of health services. Given that infants cannot express their particular health needs and demands, experiences, opinions and satisfaction of parents play a vital role in choosing the most appropriate healthcare for children [3, 4]. For Neonatal Care Unit (NCU) services, communication and information sharing, emotional support, family involvement, treatment skill and environmental conditions have been shown to be important [3, 5,6,7,8,9]. Age, sex, level of education, and income of parents have been documented to be determinant factors [8,9,10,11,12]
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