PATIENTS’ SATISFACTION WITH PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CENTERS SERVICES IN KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT

BACKGROUND: Assessment of patient satisfaction offers a way of optimizing health status and prevents waste of medical resources. The direct measurement of patient satisfaction is a new phenomenon in Kuwait. OBJECTIVE: Assess patient satisfaction with respect to primary health care services and study any patterns of association of sociodemographic variables on the patient satisfaction level. METHODS: The sample consisted of 301 patients selected systematically from five primary health care centers to represent various geographic areas in Kuwait City. Just over 56% of the sample were females, 59% were married, the great majority (70.4%) were government employees, more than 60% had a monthly income of less than 900 KD, more than 54% were intermediate and high secondary school graduates, and 37% were university graduates or had advanced degrees. The data was collected by personal interview using structured questionnaire. RESULTS: The overall mean satisfaction was 3.1 points out of five (62%). The mean satisfaction scores were 3.64, 3.29, 3.08, 3.05, 2.21 for laboratory, pharmacy, radiology, dental and physician services, respectively. The highest mean score for physician services was obtained for communication skills (2.23); for pharmacy services, the availability of medicine (4.01); for laboratory services, the availability of lab materials (3.73); for radiology services, the waiting time for x-ray (3.60); and for dental services, the adequacy of dentists (3.27). The results indicated that gender, income, marital status and occupation were the most consistent demographic predictors of satisfaction, with females, those with lower income, lower education levels and the unemployed having higher mean satisfaction scores. CONCLUSION: There is a need for corrective intervention in some service areas and for an educational program to inform patients of the objectives and limitations of primary health services.