The assessment of health system responsiveness from the viewpoints of COVID-19 patients

BACKGROUND: Pandemics such as Corona are currently major health concerns worldwide. Health system responsiveness to the medical and non-medical needs of patients during pandemics is essential. This study aimed to examine hospitals’ responsiveness to Corona patients. METHODS: This descriptive and analytical research had a cross-sectional design. The study population included Corona patients discharged from 17 public hospitals of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Iran, in the spring of 2021. WHO questionnaire for health system responsiveness was used to collect data. 413 patients participated in the study who were selected by random classified sampling. To analyze the data, descriptive statistics, including frequency, and deviation, and to examine the relationship between variables, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests were used. RESULTS: In this study, one-third participants were in the age range of 31 to 40 (32.6%). The ability of 277 (70.5%) participants to pay treatment costs was very low, and low. 380 (96.7%) of the respondents had basic health insurance and 101 (25.7%) had supplementary insurance. In general, respondents evaluated the responsiveness of hospitals as 75.6. The highest score was related to confidentiality, and the lowest to prompt attention. There was no significant relationship between the total response score with demographic information. CONCLUSION: The responsiveness of studied hospitals to Corona patients was adequate. However, there was dissatisfaction with the lack of timely treatment and medication. Moreover, the most important dimension of responsiveness was dignity. Healthcare providers need to pay attention to different aspects of responsiveness and improving the quality of and access to health services during pandemics and disasters.