Patient perceived priorities between technical skills and interpersonal skills: their influence on correlates of patient satisfaction

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The study objective was to elucidate the differences in factors related to overall patient satisfaction levels among subgroups based on whether patients placed higher priorities on technical or interpersonal skills of health care personnel. This questionnaire survey targeted 2341 patients discharged from five Japanese hospitals in 2007. Patients were grouped based on whether they prioritized technical or interpersonal skills by chi-squared automatic interaction detection (CHAID) analysis. Multiple regression analysis was used to compare and evaluate differences in various factors related to patient satisfaction among the subgroups. Survey respondent rate was 55.7% (1305 patients). CHAID analysis showed that patients, in particular those warded in surgery departments, tended to place a higher value on technical skills, although paediatric and rehabilitation patients also placed a high value on interpersonal skills. While it has been shown that non-surgical patients tended to prioritize interpersonal skills, our results revealed that patients warded in the surgery department who did not undergo operations still prioritized technical skills. These variation patterns among patient subgroups were further supported by regression analysis of overall patient satisfaction. In surgical patients, the 40- to 79-year-old subgroup regarded technical skills to be more important and the role of the doctor was found to be more associated with overall satisfaction. However, even among surgical patients, older patients placed higher values on interpersonal skills, and overall satisfaction was found to be more associated with health care professionals (besides doctors) and living arrangements. We conclude that differences in patient satisfaction levels could be influenced by different perspectives on prioritized skills.