High Satisfaction Rating by Users of Private-for-profit Healthcare Providers—evidence from a Cross-sectional Survey Among Inpatients of a Private Tertiary Level Hospital of North India

BACKGROUND: Evaluation of outcomes can help improve the quality of provision of services within a healthcare setting. There is limited report on patient satisfaction in private-sector in India although they provide three-quarters of healthcare services. AIM: The study was designed to report the level of satisfaction among inpatients of a private tertiary care hospital in India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 102 participants were recruited and their socio-demographic, health-seeking behavior, and satisfaction rating on various aspects of healthcare were elicited. A five item Likert scale was used to obtain the satisfaction rating. Data analysis was done with the help of Stata version-9. Proportions for the discrete variables and means with Standard Deviation for the continuous variables were obtained. RESULTS: All the participants were urban and from upper-middle or upper socio-economic strata. The participants reported a high level of overall satisfaction (93%) as well as high satisfaction with physicians (95%), the doctor's interpersonal skills (99%), nursing-care (93%), general services (94%), and pharmacy (88.1%). CONCLUSION: There was a high level of satisfaction reported by the participants at this tertiary level hospital. This might reflect the actual good quality services being provided by the provider or the nonannoying response, which cannot be ruled out.