Predictors of adult patient satisfaction with nursing care in public hospitals of Amhara region, Northwest Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Nursing care plays a prominent role in determining the overall satisfaction of patients’ hospitalization experience. Studies have shown that satisfaction with nursing care is the best indicator of patients’ satisfaction with healthcare facilities. The aim of the current study was intended to determine the level of satisfaction and identifying factors towards nursing care from the admitted adult patients’ viewpoints. METHOD: The study was done from January 01 to February 01/2017 at three public hospitals of Amhara region using an institutional cross-sectional study design. Systematic random sampling technique was employed to recruit 585 sampled study participants. Patient Satisfaction with Nursing Care Scale was utilized to collect the data. Variables which had statistically significant association with the outcome variable (P < 0.05) were identified as significant in the multivariable logistic regression analysis. RESULT: A total of 563 patients participated. The overall admitted adult patient satisfaction with nursing care was 40.7%. Patients were more satisfied with the provision of health information, affective support, and professional technical control and least satisfied with decisional control which includes allowing patients and their attendants in the involvement of care. Being governmental employee, patients in the age group of 31–40 years and 4–8 patients in a single room were least satisfied with the nursing care whereas ever married, more educated and patients admitted to the surgical ward were more satisfied than their counterparts with nursing care. CONCLUSION: The overall level of patient satisfaction in this study was very low in comparison with many studies. This may urge hospital administrators, policymakers and nurses to be more sensitive with patients’ decisional control or sense of autonomy when providing care.