Patient Satisfaction and it's Relation to Diabetic Control in a Primary Care Setting

CONTEXT: Patient satisfaction is of increasing importance and recognized as an important indicator for quality of care. It is influenced by the patients, physicians and practice's characteristics. The literature on diabetes has increasingly focused on the quality of care and its measurement. The relationship between the quality of diabetes care and patient satisfaction is poorly understood and it requires further elaboration. AIMS: The aim of this study is to Identify the underlying factors influencing patient's satisfaction with the diabetes care, to assess whether comprehensive diabetes management that provided in diabetic clinic improves satisfaction and glycemic control. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: Cross-sectional study Family Medicine and Diabetic Clinics at King Abdul-Aziz Medical City. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 230 type two diabetic patients attending their follow-up were requested to fill the questionnaire. The questionnaire identified patients, doctors and practice related factors. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: SPSS 16 with appropriate statistical test. RESULTS: The response rate was 85%. Mean hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level was 0.087 ± 0.020. Around half of the patients were having high satisfaction rate of (>60%). Doctor's communication ranked the highest satisfaction level among other factors. However, no association between satisfaction with other patient's characteristics and HbA1c. CONCLUSIONS: Physicians play a major role in promoting higher level of satisfaction by good communication with their patients. More efforts are needed to improve certain aspects of diabetic care such as: Patient's education and periodic physical examination. Although the present study did not show any association between satisfaction and important outcome like HbA1c, more studies are needed to explore such complex relationship. To obtain more significant results a bigger sample size might be needed.