An Investigation into Patient Satisfaction from the Healthcare System in Saudi Arabia: Survey and Analysis of the Major Determinants in the Qassim Region
Keywords:
patient satisfaction, healthcare system in Saudi Arabia, determinants of satisfaction, experiences, perceptions, and expectations
Abstract
The main aim of this empirical study is to investigate and assess the degree of patient satisfaction in hospitals in the Al-Qassim region of Saudi Arabia and the primary causes that may contribute to satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the healthcare system. Primary data were acquired from a sample consisting of 292 patients in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Al-Qassim region. The level of patient satisfaction with the healthcare system in Al-Qassim region was investigated using a self-administered questionnaire. The main determinants of patient satisfaction in the healthcare system included patient demographics, expectations, perceptions, and experiences. In Al-Qassim region patient experiences and expectations were the most important elements in influencing their satisfaction level. Further, demographics factors have favorable and substantial effects on people's perceptions and behavior regarding their satisfaction level with healthcare services in the Al-Qassim region. This research will aid healthcare administrators, policymakers, paramedical staff, and physicians in identifying the reasons for patient dissatisfaction and considering viable options to improve patient satisfaction levels in the health care system.
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References
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Jawaid, M., Ahmed, N., Alam, S.N., Rizvi, B.H., & Razzak, H.A. (2009). Patients experiences and satisfaction from surgical out patient department of a tertiary care teaching hospital. Pak J Med Sci, 25(3), 439-42.
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Lee, P. R. (1985). Health promotion and disease prevention for children and the elderly. Health services research, 19(6 Pt 2), 783.
Loevinsohn, B., Ul Haq, I., Couffinhal, A., & Pande, A. (2009). Contracting-in management to strengthen publicly financed primary health services—the experience of Punjab, Pakistan. Health policy, 91(1), 17-23.
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Savage, R., & Armstrong, D. (1990). Effect of a general practitioner's consulting style on patients' satisfaction: a controlled study. British medical journal, 301(6758), 968-970.
Sekaran, U. (2003). Research methods for business. A skill building approach (4th ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
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Siddiqui, S., Sheikh, F., & Kamal, R. (2011). What families want-an assessment of family expectations in the ICU. International archives of medicine, 4(1), 1-5.
Sitzia, J., & Wood, N. (1997). Patient satisfaction: a review of issues and concepts. Social science & medicine, 45(12), 1829-1843.
Sultana, A., Riaz, R., Hameed, S., Syed Arshad, S., Iffat, T., & Arshia, B. (2010). Patient satisfaction in emergency department of District Head Quarters Hospital, Rawalpindi. Rawal Med J, 35(1), 85-90.
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Al-Emadi, N., Falamarzi, S., Al-Kuwari, M. G., & Al-Ansari, A. (2009). Patients’ satisfaction with primary health care services in Qatar. Middle East Journal of Family Medicine, 7(9), 4-9.
Al-Yousuf, M., Akerele, T. M., & Al Mazrou, Y. Y. (2002). Organization of the Saudi health system. EMHJ-Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 8(4-5), 645-653.
Ancarani, A., Di Mauro, C., & Giammanco, M. D. (2009). How are organisational climate models and patient satisfaction related? A competing value framework approach. Social science & medicine, 69(12), 1813-1818.
Aragon, S. J., & Gesell, S. B. (2003). A patient satisfaction theory and its robustness across gender in emergency departments: a multigroup structural equation modeling investigation. American Journal of Medical Quality, 18(6), 229-241.
Babbie, E. (1993). The practice of social research. Belmont: Wadsworth, McGraw-Hill, Ins.
Bernhart, M. H., Wiadnyana, I. G. P., Wihardjo, H., & Pohan, I. (1999). Patient satisfaction in developing countries. Social science & medicine, 48(8), 989-996.
Bleich, S. N., Özaltin, E., & Murray, C. J. (2009). How does satisfaction with the health-care system relate to patient experience? Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 87(4), 271-278.
Bowling, A., Rowe, G., Lambert, N., Waddington, M., Mahtani, K. R., Kenten, C., ... & Francis, S. A. (2012). The measurement of patients' expectations for health care: a review and psychometric testing of a measure of patients' expectations. Health technology assessment, 16(30).
Bourque, L., & Fielder, E. P. (2003). How to conduct self-administered and mail surveys (Vol. 3). Sage.
Braunsberger, K., & Gates, R. H. (2002). Patient/enrollee satisfaction with healthcare and health plan. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 19(7), 575–590. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760210451401
Campbell, J. L., Dickens, A., Richards, S. H., Pound, P., Greco, M., & Bower, P. (2007). Capturing users’ experience of UK out-of-hours primary medical care: piloting and psychometric properties of the Out-of-hours Patient Questionnaire. BMJ Quality & Safety, 16(6), 462-468.
Clark, C., Young, M. S., Jackson, E., Graeber, C., Mazelis, R., Kammerer, N., & Huntington, N. (2008). Consumer perceptions of integrated trauma-informed services among women with co-occurring disorders. The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, 35(1), 71-90.
Constantino, M. J., Arnkoff, D. B., Glass, C. R., Ametrano, R. M., & Smith, J. Z. (2011). Expectations. Journal of clinical psychology, 67(2), 184-192.
Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16(3), 297-334.
Daniel, W. (1999). Biostatistics: A Foundation for analysis in the health sciences, 7th edR Wiley. New York, 141-142.
Desta, H., Berhe, T., & Hintsa, S. (2018). Assessment of patients’ satisfaction and associated factors among outpatients received mental health services at public hospitals of Mekelle Town, northern Ethiopia. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 12(1), 1-7.
Donabedian, A. (1980). The definition of Quality and Approaches to its Assessment. Vol. I Health Administration Press. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Dyer, N., Sorra, J. S., Smith, S. A., Cleary, P., & Hays, R. (2012). Psychometric properties of the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS®) clinician and group adult visit survey. Medical care, 50(Suppl), S28.
Ekwall, A., & Davis, B. A. (2010). Testing a Swedish version of the consumer emergency care satisfaction scale in an emergency department and 2 observation wards. Journal of Nursing Care Quality, 25(3), 266-273.
Erci, B., & Çiftçioğlu, S. (2010). Psychometric evaluation of the primary health-care satisfaction scale in Turkish women. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 22(6), 500-506.
Funderburk, J.S., Fielder, R.L., DeMartini, K.S., & Flynn, C.A. (2012). Integrating behavioral health services into a university health center: Patient and provider satisfaction. Families, Systems, & Health, 30(2), 130.
Greenberg, R.P., Constantino, M.J., & Bruce, N. (2006). Are patient expectations still relevant for psychotherapy process and outcome? Clinical psychology review, 26(6), 657-678.
Hills, R., & Kitchen, S. (2007). Toward a theory of patient satisfaction with physiotherapy: Exploring the concept of satisfaction. Physiotherapy theory and practice, 23(5), 243-254.
Jawaid, M., Ahmed, N., Alam, S.N., Rizvi, B.H., & Razzak, H.A. (2009). Patients experiences and satisfaction from surgical out patient department of a tertiary care teaching hospital. Pak J Med Sci, 25(3), 439-42.
Last, J.M., Spasoff, R.A., & Harris, S.S., eds. (2000). A dictionary of epidemiology. 4th ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Lee, P. R. (1985). Health promotion and disease prevention for children and the elderly. Health services research, 19(6 Pt 2), 783.
Loevinsohn, B., Ul Haq, I., Couffinhal, A., & Pande, A. (2009). Contracting-in management to strengthen publicly financed primary health services—the experience of Punjab, Pakistan. Health policy, 91(1), 17-23.
Marshall, G. N., & Hays, R. D. (1994). The patient satisfaction questionnaire short-form (PSQ-18) (Vol. 7865). Santa Monica, CA: Rand.
Mohamed, E. Y., Sami, W., Alotaibi, A., Alfarag, A., Almutairi, A., & Alanzi, F. (2015). Patients’ satisfaction with primary health care centers’ services, Majmaah, Kingdom of Saudi of Saudi Arabia. International journal of health sciences, 9(2), 163.
Nguyen Thi, P. L., Briançon, S., Empereur, F., & Guillemin, F. (2002). Factors determining inpatient satisfaction with care. Social science & medicine (1982), 54(4), 493–504. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0277-9536(01)00045-4
Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric Theory 2nd edition. New York: McGraw. Url: https://www.scribd.com/document/366667341/Jum-Nunnally-Ira-Bernstein-Psychometric-Theory
Qidwai, W., Dhanani, R. H., & Khan, F. M. (2003). Implications for the practice of a patient expectation and satisfaction survey, at a teaching hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. Journal of Pakistan Medical Association, 53, 122.
Quintana, J. M., González, N., Bilbao, A., Aizpuru, F., Escobar, A., Esteban, C., ... & Thompson, A. (2006). Predictors of patient satisfaction with hospital health care. BMC health services research, 6(1), 1-9.
Saleem, T., Khalid, U., & Qidwai, W. (2009). Geriatric patients' expectations of their physicians: findings from a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan. BMC health services research, 9(1), 1-10.
Savage, R., & Armstrong, D. (1990). Effect of a general practitioner's consulting style on patients' satisfaction: a controlled study. British medical journal, 301(6758), 968-970.
Sekaran, U. (2003). Research methods for business. A skill building approach (4th ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
Shaikh, B. T., Mobeen, N., Azam, S. I., & Rabbani, F. (2008). Using SERVQUAL for assessing and improving patient satisfaction at a rural health facility in Pakistan. EMHJ-Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 14(2), 447-456.
Siddiqui, S., Sheikh, F., & Kamal, R. (2011). What families want-an assessment of family expectations in the ICU. International archives of medicine, 4(1), 1-5.
Sitzia, J., & Wood, N. (1997). Patient satisfaction: a review of issues and concepts. Social science & medicine, 45(12), 1829-1843.
Sultana, A., Riaz, R., Hameed, S., Syed Arshad, S., Iffat, T., & Arshia, B. (2010). Patient satisfaction in emergency department of District Head Quarters Hospital, Rawalpindi. Rawal Med J, 35(1), 85-90.
World Health Organization (WHO). (1948). Constitution of WHO (Preamble). https://www.who.int/about/governance/constitution
World Health Organization (WHO). (1986). The 1st International Conference on Health Promotion, Ottawa, https://www.who.int/teams/health-promotion/enhanced-wellbeing/first-global-conference
Walston, S., Al-Harbi, Y., and Al-Omar, B. (2008). "The Changing Face of Healthcare in Saudi Arabia." Annals of Saudi Medicine 28(4), 243–50.
Ware, J. E., Snyder, M. K., & Wright, W. R. (1976). Development and Validation of Scales to Measure Patient Satisfaction with Medical Care Services. Volume I, Part B: Results Regarding Scales Constructed from the Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire and Measures of Other Health Care Perceptions.
Webster, T. R., Mantopoulos, J., Jackson, E., Cole-Lewis, H., Kidane, L., Kebede, S., ... & Bradley, E. H. (2011). A brief questionnaire for assessing patient healthcare experiences in low-income settings. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 23(3), 258-268.
World Health Organization (WHO). (2000). World Health Report 2000. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/79020/ea4.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Yin, R. K. (2016). Qualitative research from start to finish. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Published
2022-08-30
How to Cite
Alharbi, M. F. (2022). An Investigation into Patient Satisfaction from the Healthcare System in Saudi Arabia: Survey and Analysis of the Major Determinants in the Qassim Region. Amazonia Investiga, 11(54), 158-168. https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2022.54.06.15
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