PATIENT SATISFACTION AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG OUT PATIENT SERVICE AT AGENA HEALTH CENTER, SOUTH ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Back Ground: Patient satisfaction is one of the main components of quality of care which includes respect for the patient and understanding the need of patient and providing services accordingly. However these efforts are undergoing to improve the service and the needs of the people have not yet been adequately met. Thus, the level of client‟s Satisfaction particularly with the hospital‟s outpatient services is not known, and there was no any attempt so far. Objective: The aim of this study is to assess the level of clients‟ satisfaction with the services of outpatient service and associated factors in the Agena Health Center, 2023. Methods and materials: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted at Agena health center. The study was conducted on patient coming on a study period and systematic random sampling was done in each ward. A total of 420 patients were interviewed using semi structured questionnaire. The administered questionnaires were checked for completeness, cleaned manually and will be entered in to SPSS for further analysis Discussion The study identified that socio-demographic variables like Age, sex, marital status and Occupation had no any significant association with the client‟s satisfaction. Based on the our study finding there were good client satisfaction among clients who wait for short time were highly satisfied than who wait for long time , respected privacy, appropriate consultation room, clean waitin area, telling the client about their illness, couse, treamen, ways of prevention, and return if it gets worse, those are highly associated with patient satisfaction. Conclusion: In this study the patient satisfaction is high compared with the previous studies conducted in Ethiopia. There was significant association of client satisfaction with waiting time, respected privacy, appropriate consultation room, clean waitin area, telling the client about their illness, couse, treamen, ways of prevention, and return if it gets worse. Recommendation:. Health center managers and Woreda Health office needs to improve long waiting, Carry out on job training and education on health service professional behavior and ethics that encompass all service providers in the Health Centers. That can increase the service providers, respect, responsiveness and assure the way privacy and confidentiality of information of their clients will be kept and should work toward improvement of the cleanliness and comfort of waiting areas, especially service roo