Patient Satisfaction by Family Health Unit Infrastructure; A EUROPEP Survey Study in the Maltepe District of Istanbul

Abstract

Purpose and Theory: The concepts of quality and patient satisfaction are important in the evaluation of healthcare services. In 2011, the Ministry of Health grouped “Family Health Units” (FHU) -according to infrastructure- as A, B, C, D and “without ranking”. The primary objective of this study was determining patient satisfaction in primary healthcare services by FHU group. Methods: In this study cross-sectional and descriptive study data were collected with two tools: a form featuring 6 questions about socio-demographic issues and the EUROPEP (patient satisfaction) questionnaire, which consists of 23 questions scored by a 5-point Likert scale. The FHUs were selected randomly based from a list of all FHUs by grouping. There was no a priorisample size calculation. All consenting men and women between the ages of 18-65 applying to the selected FHUs between 19.02.2013 and 26.02.2013 were enrolled in a fort following fashion (systematic sampling). Findings: The number of enrolled patients by FHU group was as follows: group A n=80 (19.7%), group B n=70 (17.2%), group c n=117 (28.8%), group D n=66 (16.3%), and 73 (18%) patients from the FHU “without ranking”; total n=406. There was no correlation between age, gender, marital status, education level, income level and EUROPEP scores (p=0.26, p=0.380, p=0.058, p=0.109, p=0.625, respectively). Participants receiving clinical care scored significantly higher on the EUROPEP (clinical care group 4.1±0.7 vs. 3.9±0.9 other reason for encounter, p=0.048). The satisfaction scores of Group A, B, C and D FHU patients (4.2±0.7, 4.1±0.8, 4.0±0.8, 4.2±0.6, respectively) were all significantly higher as compared to the score of patients attending the FHU “without ranking” (3.6±0.8, p=0.001).