Quality disparity in terms of clients’ satisfaction with selected exempted health care services provided in Ethiopia: Meta-analysis

INTRODUCTION: In Ethiopia; even though utilization of health care services has been improved after the introduction of user fee exemption, little is known about the quality of the services. There are fragmented studies on the output dimension of quality of health care services particularly on clients’ satisfaction. Therefore this study aims to assess overall quality (in terms of clients’ satisfaction) and its disparity among users of selected exempted health care services provided in Ethiopia. METHODS: The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline was used to undertake this study. Both published and unpublished articles conducted in Ethiopia on the quality of health care services in terms of clients’ satisfaction dimensions were searched. A total of 750 articles were retrieved through international databases (Scopus, MEDLINE/PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar and Cochrane Library) and national digital library repositories (Addis Ababa University’s digital library repository); 703 of which were excluded while only 47 articles were included in the meta-analysis. The search for articles was conducted during the period 03 December 2019 to 28 January 2020. For methodological qualities of the included articles assessment, a modified version of the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale adapted for cross-sectional studies was used. R version 3.6.1 and stata version 14 soft wares were used for analysis. A random-effects model was used to calculate pooled estimates. The I2 tests were used to assess the heterogeneity of the studies. RESULTS: The pooled overall prevalence of included 47 studies revealed that clients’ satisfaction among users of selected exempted health care services in Ethiopia was 70% (95% CI: 64, 74%). In subgroup analysis; the lowest prevalence of clients’ satisfaction was observed among users of obstetrics maternal health care services with the prevalence of 65.04% (95% CI: 57.50, 72.58). CONCLUSION: This study found that more than one-third of respondents; was not satisfied with exempted health care services. There is slight difference in satisfaction of clients across type of exempted health care services and regions. Policy and decision makers in Ethiopia shall design strategies to optimize quality of health care services besides exemption of its costs.it is also strongly recommend that a special emphasis shall be given to obstetric health care services provision. Moreover, concerned stakeholders’ (ministry of health, etc.) should strengthen compassionate respectful care provision in public health facilities; beside to removing user fees.