Impact of Pain on Patient Satisfaction Integration Process: How Patients With Pain Combine Their Health Care Attribute Reactions

CONTEXT: Health care environments have been changing rapidly, and one of the changes is to emphasize patient satisfaction. However, most studies assume that all patients integrate their health care attribute reactions in the same way to arrive at their satisfaction. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to investigate how patients’ experience of pain influences their attribute reaction integration process and their overall rating of the hospital. DESIGN: Patient satisfaction data were collected using a mailed questionnaire. Multiple linear regression analyses with a dichotomous (yes/no) pain variable and its interaction effects with nursing care, physician care, staff care, and hospital room were conducted with control variables. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The pain variable was statistically significant and also revealed interaction effects with the physician care and the staff care variables in the model. Patients who needed medicine for pain showed lower overall rating of the hospitals than patients who did not need medicine. RESULTS: The statistically significant interaction effects indicate that for patients who needed medicine for pain, staff care becomes more important and physician care becomes less important compared to patients who do not need medicine for pain. All 4 attributes (nursing care, physician care, staff care, and hospital room) are not equally influential. CONCLUSION: Implementing policies and procedures related to these interaction effects would lead to the most efficient and effective improvement outcomes. These findings suggest that future policies should be modified to enhance nursing and staff care to provide more direct care for patients with pain.