Abstract
This study aims to examine whether humanity of care and environmental comfort played a role in moderating the relationship between waiting time and patient satisfaction in an emergency department (ED). The study used a cross-sectional and non-randomized design. A total of 260 ED patients in two hospitals in Italy completed a self-report questionnaire. Moderated regression showed that after adjusting for control variables, waiting time was significantly and inversely associated with patient satisfaction. Humanity of care and environmental comfort showed a positive and significant association with patient satisfaction. Finally, the interaction term between waiting time and humanity of care was found to be significant, whereas the interaction effect between waiting time and environmental comfort was not significant. The conditional effect showed that when humanity of care was low, waiting time was negatively and significantly related to patient satisfaction. By contrast, when humanity of care was medium and high, the relationship between waiting time and patient satisfaction was not significant. These findings shed light on the key role of humanity of care in moderating the relationship between waiting time and patient satisfaction. The complex interrelations emerged should be carefully considered when interventions to foster patient satisfaction in an ED context are planned.
Highlights
Patient satisfaction is a concept that has received increasing attention in emergency medicine, reflecting an evolving focus on a patient-driven model
The present study is of importance since it is the first study, to the best of our knowledge, that tested the moderating role of humanity of care and environmental comfort in regards to waiting time and patient satisfaction
A key added value of this study was that we highlighted the way in which the various aspects of the care experience affected patient satisfaction in the emergency department (ED) context and how it is more complex than previously thought
Summary
Patient satisfaction is a concept that has received increasing attention in emergency medicine, reflecting an evolving focus on a patient-driven model. Patient satisfaction literature has been extensively developed in countries in which the private health-care system is predominant (in particular, the US) and where patient satisfaction promotion tends to be seen as a central strategy to foster loyalty of the “patient-consumer” [1]. It has been shown that patient satisfaction is predictive of better treatment compliance, fewer malpractice complaints, and fewer professional liability litigations [2]. In countries in which the public health-care system is prevalent, the benefits of accounting for patient satisfaction have been recognized [3,4]. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 2939; doi:10.3390/ijerph17082939 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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