The Mediating Effect of Patient Satisfaction on the Patient's Perception of Healthcare Quality and Patient Trust

Abstract

Background: Patients‟ experiences with quality of care and patient satisfaction in hospital are considered to be important elements in quality improvement of work in hospitals, and are also seen as indicators of quality of healthcare. The Aim of this study was to investigate the impact of patient satisfaction in the patients‟ perceptions of healthcare quality and patient trust Research design: A descriptive study was used. Setting: the study conducted in Minia General Hospital. Subjects: Includes all patients (200 patients) admitted to general Medical and Surgical Departments. Tools of study: three tools were used include personal characteristics data, SERVQUAL questionnaire, patient satisfaction questionnaire, and patient trust questionnaire. Results: more than half of the studied subjects strongly disagree toward prompt services (no waiting time), services provided as expected, efficiency of admitting procedure, friendly and courteous staff/doctors, and healthy, neat and clean environment. Also, there were positive correlations between patient satisfaction, patient trust and healthcare quality items with highly statistically significant differences. Conclusion: the patients are not satisfied about healthcare quality and they haven't trust and satisfaction about their services. Recommendation: Hospitals have to running a study on managers/doctors/staff perceptions of hospitals' services.