Assessment of client satisfaction on emergency department services in Hawassa University Referral Hospital, Hawassa, Southern Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Satisfaction refers to a state of pleasure or contentment with an action, event or service, especially one that was previously desired. Regarding to client, satisfaction is the level of happiness that clients experience having used a service. It therefore reflects the gap between the expected service and the experience of the service, from the client’s point of view. Information was unavailable regarding the level of satisfaction of patients towards emergency health care servicesat Hawassa University Referral Hospital thatserve a huge catchment area; and this study addressed this gap. METHOD: Cross-sectional study was conducted from March 13 to May 15/2014. Systematic sampling method was used to enroll study participants. The data was collected by trained data collectors using pre-structured questionnaire. RESULTS: A total 407 clients were enrolled under this study with respondent rate of 96.9%. Nearly two third of study participants were male, 270 (66.3%). 86.7% of study participants were satisfied by services provided in Emergency Out Patient Department (OPD). The percentage of study satisfaction with physical examination by Doctor, nursing, laboratory and pharmacy services were 95.6%, 89.9%, 84.7% and 67.6%, respectively. Only 31.9% were satisfied with availability of drugs in the pharmacy. Regarding to staff courtesy, 91.7% of study participants were satisfied by the manner shown by the staffs working in Emergency OPD. The vast majority of the participants (97%) were satisfied with the courtesy of Medical laboratory personnel and the least satisfaction (79.4%) was recorded for security guards. CONCLUSION: This study showed low level of patient satisfaction in pharmacy services specifically due to unavailability of drugs due to lack of sustained supply of drugs. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12873-017-0132-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.