Satisfaction of Rehabilitation Patients on Social Media Websites and Online Rating Portals

Abstract

Patients increasingly express themselves about their medical rehabilitation stay, evaluate health service providers with star ratings, and write reviews on the internet. So far, no results are available regarding online patient satisfaction for inpatient medical rehabilitation in Germany. For the first time, this study conducted a systematic analysis of rehabilitation patient satisfaction on social media websites and hospital rating portals. We collected reviews of medical rehabilitation on the portal Klinikbewertungen.de and the social network Facebook for 8 indication groups (orthopedics, psychosomatics/psychotherapy, oncology, cardiology, neurology, internal medicine, pulmonology/dermatology, gastroenterology) with a full data extraction over 3 survey years (October 2014-September 2017) and for rehabilitation clinics with main bed occupancy of retirement insurance (N=497). The star ratings, aggregated according to indication groups, were evaluated to determine patient satisfaction (Pearson's chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, Phi coefficient). A total of 97.2% of the rehabilitation clinics were represented, with 24,806 ratings on Klinikbewertungen.de. The most frequently evaluated indication groups were orthopedics (38.5%) and psychosomatics/psychotherapy (27.1%). Facebook ratings (N=4,127) were collected for rehabilitation clinics with one department (38.6%) in order to ensure an indication group assignment. Almost the same number of ratings were determined on official (48.7%) and unofficial Facebook pages (51.3%), with no significant correlation between website management and overall satisfaction (p>0.05). On the Facebook pages of the rehabilitation clinics, 49.1% of the ratings were written by women (38.5% by men; 12.4% not assignable). Sociodemographic information on Klinikbewertungen.de was based solely on the status of the insured (89.1% of those with statutory insurance). Overall, 95.4% of the reviews were written by patients and 4.0% by relatives, with 77.5% of patients recommending the clinic to other users (relatives: 37.2%). Most patient ratings were positive. However, there were differences in overall satisfaction between the indication groups. Patients in oncology (77.9%) were more satisfied than those in neurology (59.0%). Online ratings of inpatient medical rehabilitation were collected to a considerable extent. These were mostly positive. The results are comparable to standardized surveys. Despite restrictions in the use of social media data, the results indicated that the publicly available real-time online feedback from patients can provide useful information for the quality management of clinics as well as for patients in exercising their right to choose a rehabilitation clinic.