Satisfaction determinants : parents with children admitted to an adult inpatient surgical unit

Abstract

With the recent movement in healthcare to view the patient as a consumer, it has been recognized that patient satisfaction is an essential measurement of high quality healthcare. For populations of patients that have difficulty speaking for themselves, such as pediatrics, assessing the parent guardian satisfaction becomes essential. Rural areas face unique challenges with pediatric care including long distances from home to a healthcare facility and lack of specialized care. The causal model is used for the theoretical framework, which states that there are two factors that directly influence patient satisfaction. These are process quality and clinical quality. Demographic factors are also included because there is conflicting information of the correlation between demographics and satisfaction. There is little known about the factors that contribute to high levels of satisfaction in the pediatric population. The purpose of this study is to understand what factors play the greatest role in directly influence satisfaction of parents whose children are hospitalized. Specifically, the relationship between overall satisfaction and parent demographics, process quality and clinical quality were explored. The study is a descriptive correlational study with a non-random, convenience sample of parents whose children are admitted to adult in-patient surgical unit during an eight week period of time. The parents filled out a Pediatric Family Satisfaction Questionnaire (PFSQ) at the time of discharge. The total sample size was 13 with a 77% response rate. Overall, the satisfaction scores were very high. Correlations could not be established due to the lack of variability in certain factors. The study did reveal trends that are consistent with findings of previous studies. These trends include the reluctance to be critical of healthcare, higher satisfaction scores with lower levels of education and higher satisfaction with process quality.