Abstract

Background: Patient satisfaction is an attitude resulting from a person’s general orientation to an experience. Most of studies tried to measure overall satisfaction with holistic services given to patients and confined only to outpatient services.

Objective: This study was aimed at comparing the satisfaction level of patients among inpatients with outpatients on nursing care in Yekatit 12 Hospital Medical College, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2018.

Methods: A comparative cross sectional study design was used to compare the satisfaction level of patients in outpatient versus inpatient departments of Yekatit 12 Hospital Medical College, from June to July 2018. A total of 80 inpatients and 80 outpatient participants were sampled on the basis of convenience sampling. Data was collected with a pre-tested interviewer  administered  structured  questionnaire. Analysis  was  carried  out  with  SPSS version  21  software.  Independent  t-test  was  used  to  make  comparison  between  the  two  groups, considering p<0.05 as a level of significance.

Results: Fifty-seven percent of inpatient participants and 42% of outpatient participants were females. Sixty-two percent of inpatients and 67% of outpatient participants reported to have a monthly income of 1500 birr and more. Fifty-three percent’s of outpatients and 38% of inpatients were satisfied. There was a statistically significant difference in level of satisfaction  between  the  two  groups  on  nursing  care  at  p<0.05.  Participants  in  outpatient  department had a higher level (mean+SD, 20+7.16) of satisfaction than participants in the inpatient departments (mean+SD, 17+5.66) at p<0.05.

Conclusion: Findings of this study revealed that there was a significant difference in level of  client  satisfaction  between  inpatient  versus  outpatient.  Satisfaction  was  higher  among  outpatient  than  inpatient  groups,  at  p<0.05.  Large  scale  studies  are  recommended  to  evaluate what actually happened to other areas of health sector.

Keywords

comparative, questionnaire, patients, participants, outpatient, inpatient, health sector