Clients’ perception and satisfaction toward service provided by pharmacy professionals at a teaching hospital in Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Evaluation of client’s perception and satisfaction with pharmacy services is important to identify specific areas of the service that need improvement in achieving high-quality pharmacy services. It also helps to detect the gaps in the current pharmaceutical services provision. OBJECTIVE: To assess clients’ perception and satisfaction toward service provided by pharmacy professionals at Mizan-Tepi University Teaching Hospital. METHODS: A cross-sectional study design was employed from March 8 to 24, 2016. A semistructured questionnaire was used to assess clients’ perception and satisfaction toward service provided by pharmacy professionals. The data collected were entered into Epi data 3.1, cleaned, and transported into and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Logistic regression was employed to determine associated factors, and statistical significance was considered at p-value <0.05. RESULTS: Among 384 respondents, 53.1% were male. Of the total participants, 63.8% had good perception and 36.2% had poor perception toward pharmacy services. With regard to satisfaction, 52.6% of the respondents were satisfied and 47.4% were unsatisfied by the pharmaceutical services. Sociodemographic variables such as educational level (p=0.000), occupation (p=0.031), payment for service (p=0.002), and reasons the respondents seek service (p=0.001) showed statistically significant association with the level of perception. Clients’ satisfaction was found to be significantly associated with educational level (p=0.002) and reason for seeking service (p=0.016). CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION: This study showed that the overall mean perception and satisfaction of clients in Mizan-Tepi University Teaching Hospital was low, even though it was above the mean level of perception and satisfaction. Action has to be taken to improve the perception and satisfaction of clients with the services provided in the pharmacy section.