Problems and level of satisfaction of patients during their stay in a tertiary care institute in Punjab

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Patient satisfaction can be defined as the degree of congruency between a patient’s expectations of ideal care and his /her perception of the real care (s) he receives. It is a multidimensional aspect and represents a vital key marker for the quality of health care delivery.The cross-sectional study was conducted among the IPD patients in the indoor wards of SGRD Hospital which is a tertiary care hospital. A self-structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Questions regarding twelve potential problems were asked which could have been faced by the respondent during their stay in hospital.A total of 226 respondents were interviewed. 52.2% of the respondents were females and remaining (47.8%) were males. Overall satisfaction of the patients from the IPD services provided by the hospital was found to be 87.2%. Major problems faced by the respondent were difficulty in accessing the hospital (46%) and higher overall cost of treatment than expected (45.6%). Most of the respondents were satisfied with quality of food and water available (97.8%) and quality of linen provided by hospital and sanitary conditions of ward (97.3%).The study suggests that majority of In-patients are highly satisfied with the IPD services provided by the hospital which is highly motivating but every attempt must be made to form new policies and reform existing ones to achieve 100% satisfaction of patients. A number of potential barriers have been discovered in this study. Periodic patient satisfaction survey must be institutionalized in order to continuously improve hospital services. Patient counseling and health education cells could be open where patients and their relatives could solve their queries.