User Satisfaction Profile of an Outpatient Physical Therapy Service

Abstract

Physical therapy is characterised as a health process with prolonged interactions between the professional and the user, involving close physical contact, the user’s active participation, and frequent visits. Evaluating user satisfaction is a priority for managing health services quality, being a good index for assessing clinical effectiveness. Therefore, establishing the profile of user satisfaction with the service is important for organisational management in health units. This work aims to analyse the current satisfaction level of users of an outpatient physical therapy service, trace the satisfied user profile according to their sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, identify a set of best practices and aspects for improvement, and propose measures to improve satisfaction. Thus, a quantitative, observational, analytical-correlational, and cross-sectional study was carried out. The application of the Physical Therapy Outpatient Satisfaction Survey and a sociodemographic and clinic questionnaire allowed the creation of a microeconomic database and the application of the econometric methodology of linear regression. It was possible to identify variables that increase satisfaction, such as location, professional situation, travel time, pathology, and salary range, and variables that decrease satisfaction as the place of residence, academic qualifications, health system, referral, professional status, and age. Based on the evidence, measures to improve the physiotherapy service are proposed.