INTRODUCTION:

The goal of any service in an organization is creation of satisfaction among customers. The customers’ opinion of services is being taken into account in assessments of quality. Thus, evaluating the quality of medical care involves the measurement of its benefits to patients and the community at large. There has been increasing interest in patient’s satisfaction with nursing care in the past few decades; patient satisfaction with nursing care is considered an important factor in explaining patients perceptions of service quality (Comley and DeMeyer, 2001)

The concept of patient satisfaction is rapidly changing to customers’ delight which means the patient is not only cured of his alignment during the hospital but also pleasured with the care provided to him by the hospital staff during the stay which he fondly remembers after being discharged.

Satisfaction is the psychological state that results from confirmation or disconfirmation of expectations with reality. Stimson and Webb (1975) have suggested that satisfaction is related to perception of the outcome of care and the extent to which it meets patient expectations.

Pascoae (1983) defined patient satisfaction as “a health care recipient’s reaction to salient aspects of the context, process, and result of their service experience.” Patient’s satisfaction with nursing care is defined as the patient’s opinion of the care received from nursing staff and is acknowledged as an outcome indicator of the quality of nursing care (Jafar and Muayyad, 2003).

Caring activities said to be essential for human survival and development (Skott and Lundgren 2006). Caring has been widely discussed in the health care professions especially in nursing which is considered to be one of the caring professions (Boykin and Schoenkofer, 2001).

Patient’s are the best source of information about a hospital system’s communication, education and pain management processes and they are the only source of information about whether they were treated with dignity and respect. Their experiences often reveal how well a hospital system is operating and can stimulate important insights into the kinds of changes that are needed to close the chasm between the care provided and the care that should be provided (Michael et al., 2004).

Patients should be allowed to define their own priorities and evaluate their care accordingly, rather than having those criteria selected by professionals (David and David, 1978).

Unlike clinical process measures, which are strictly facility centered, patient satisfaction is a “patient centered” process measure. It reflects the patient’s personal response to, and evaluation of care (as opposed to the hospitals view of what is appropriate). Patient satisfaction is the only available measure of the personal impact of the full spectrum of the care process (Irwin, 2000).

OBJECTIVES:

To assess the patient satisfaction on nursing services at obstetrical and gynaecological unit of selected hospital, Coimbatore.

HYPOTHESIS:

H₁: Patients are satisfied with nursing care provided in the obstetrical and gynecological unit of selected hospital, Coimbatore.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Wolf et al., (2003) conducted a correlational study aimed at examining the relationship between cardiac patients (n=73) reports of nurse caring and satisfaction with nursing care. A moderately strong relationship between caring and satisfaction was found. The researchers commented that, since caring is considered fundamental to the nature of nursing, practicing nurses must appreciate its connection to outcomes such as patient satisfaction.

The work of Oleni et al., (2004) revealed Nursing Care at night. The aim of the study was to evaluate nursing care provided at night from the perspective of both nurses and patients. A total number of 178 nurses on night duty were consecutively selected, while the patients (n=386) were selected by convenience sampling. The results showed a statistically significant difference between nurses’ assessments and patients’ perceptions of the nursing care provided at night in nursing interventions. In the areas of medical interventions and evaluation no statistically significant, differences were found between nurses and patients.

A cross sectional study was conducted by Rafii et al., (2007) to determine the relationship between patients’ reports of nurse caring and patient satisfaction with nursing care. The study was conducted among 250 patients who were hospitalized for medical conditions or surgical procedures. The findings indicated a statistically significant relationship between patient reports of nurse caring and satisfaction with nursing care than female patients. Admissions to hospital during the last five years were positively corrected with patients’ perceptions of nurse caring and satisfaction with nursing care.

A national level literature review done by Ozsoy et al., (2007) on patient expectations and satisfaction with nursing care. The researchers reviewed 3089 articles. The results of this study are divided in to two categories, expectations concerning “nursing care”, and “satisfaction with nursing care”. The findings show that there exist conceptual and philosophic deficiencies in the approaches to patient satisfaction and that there is a need to use standardized instruments to study and assess patient satisfaction in future.

MATERIAL AND METHODS USED FOR THE STUDY:

There is no specific tool by which one can measure quality of services in medical services, however the level of satisfaction of patient about the hospital services can be considered an important tool of quality services .The patients satisfaction is an increasing assessing tool for measurement of quality services and this can be used a positive feedback systematically to choose between alternative methods of organizing or providing health care to the masses. This study was conducted in Sri Ramakrishna hospital, Coimbatore. A total number of 20 participants were selected by purposive sampling method. Questionnaire was developed and responses collected from the patients directly. The patient satisfaction questionnaire contain 15 questions which has been grouped into 4 domains such as,

1. Physical care

2. Duration of care

3. Nursing skill

4. Interpersonal relationship

The participants’ satisfaction on Nursing Care services was assessed through structured Interview Questionnaire from the 3^rd day of hospital stay in OBG unit. Oral concern was obtained and then structured Interview Questionnaire was given to the participants. After fulfilling that questionnaire, all the participants are requested to return the same Questionnaire. Grading was done by researcher in order to know the level of participants’ satisfaction on nursing care services. Descriptive statistics was used to find out the results.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

In the domain of physical care, 75 percentage of mothers verbalized that they were well satisfied which with the privacy was maintained during physical care. 50 percentages of mothers were verbalized that routine checkup was well satisfied and 45 percentage of mothers felt well satisfaction with nurses’ help during physical care.

In the domain of duration of care, 75 percentage of mothers were well satisfied with the time spend by the nurses for giving care. 55 percentages of the mothers felt well satisfied with the availability of staff, verbalized that the nurses were responded immediately to their call in the obstetrical and gynaecological unit.

In the domain of nursing skill, most of the mothers (65%) felt well satisfied with the attentive attitude of the nurses to their needs. 50 percentage of mothers felt that nurses were identified their needs and problems correctly.

Among 20 mothers, 5 percentages of mothers moderately satisfied with nurses awareness on their needs, 45 percentage of mothers felt satisfied where as another 45 percentage felt well satisfied and 5 percentage of them expressed that nurse’s awareness were excellent.

In the domain of interpersonal relationship, 65 percentage of mothers well satisfied with the listening skill of the nurses and involvement of the family members in teaching, 60 percentage of mothers were well satisfied with the health education given by the nurses, 55 percentage of mothers were well satisfied with the explanation provided by the nurses during care and 50 percentage of mothers were well satisfied with the communication between nurses and themselves.

While considering the overall patient satisfaction on nursing care services, 15 percentages of mothers felt satisfied and 60 percentage of mothers expressed they were well satisfied with the care provided by the staff nurses. 25 percentages expressed that nursing care was excellent.

REFERENCES:

1. Comley, A., and Demeyer. D. (2001). Assessing patient satisfaction with pain management through a continuous quality improvement effort. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 21, 27-40.

2. Stimson, G., and Webb, B. (1975). Ongoing to see the doctor. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. http://sciencelinks.jp/j.east/article/200704

3. Pascoae. (1993). The correspondence of patient satisfaction and Nurse Burnout. Social Science and Medicine, 47, 1611-1617.

4. Jafar, A. A., and Muayyad, M. A. (2003). Patients’ satisfaction with nursing care in Jordon. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, 16, 279-285.

5. Skott, C., and Lundgern, S. (2006). The value of caring – episodes of desired change. International Journal of Human Caring, 10(1), 32-39.

6. Boykin, A., and Schoenhofer, S. (2001). Nursing as caring; a model of transforming practice, Jones and Bartlett: Boston Massachusetts. USA.

7. Michael, P. L., Phyllis, H., and Cindy, F. (2004). The correspondence of patient satisfaction and nurse burnout. Social science and medicine, 47, 1611-1677.

8. David, L., and David, D. (1978). Therotical and methodogical issues in sociological studies of consumer satisfaction with medical care. Social Science and Medicine, 12, 283-292.

9. Irwin Press. (2000). The measure of Quality, Q Manage Health Care, 13, 2002-2009.

10. Wolf, Z., Miller, P., and Devine, M. (2003). Relationship between nurse caring and patient satisfaction in patients undergoing invasive cariac procedures. Medical Surgical Nursing, 12(6), 391-396.

11. Oleni, M., Johansson, P., Fridlund, B. (2004). Nursing care at night. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 47, 25-32.

12. Rafii, F., Hajinezhad, M. E., and Haghani, H. (2007). Nursing caring in Iran and its relationship with patient satisfaction. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 26, 75-84.

13. Ozsoy, S. A., Ozgur, G., and Akyol, A. D. (2007). Patient expectation and satisfaction with nursing care in Turkey, “a literature review”. International Nursing Review, 54, 249-255.

Received on 23.12.2010 Modified on 04.01.2011

Asian J. Nur. Edu. & Research 1(1): Jan.-March 2011; Page 03-05