Abstract
Background: Patient's satisfaction is regarded as an outcome of care in itself and is one of the major contributors toward better patient compliance leading, presumably, to better clinical outcomes. Many studies have been done in Saudi Arabia assessing health care services but only few were conducted assessing consultation per se and was quite a long time ago. The objective of the study is to find the relation between consultation time and patient's satisfaction of both male and female patients and the other correlates of patient's satisfaction among those attending Primary Health Care Clinics.
Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out over April-June during 2013; adult patients >= 18 years old were selected from Primary Care Clinics in Riyadh City. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire with 21 items of patient satisfaction scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive and analytic statistics.
Results: The study included 400 patients. The average consultation time among females was (16.28 +/- 8.006) minutes and among males was (17.68 +/- 9.049) with no significant difference (p-value=0.102, CI -0.280, 3.080). The mean satisfaction score among females was (94.18, SD=+/- 1.54), while among males was (104.68, SD=+/- 11.99). The difference between the two groups in the overall satisfaction score is significant. Female patient's satisfaction was positively correlated with consultation time as well as the age. Among males, the satisfaction didn't show any correlation with the consultation time but it was negatively correlated with marital status, experiencing bad experience with family medicine doctor in the last year, and with the waiting time in waiting area.
Conclusion: Females' satisfaction is positively correlated with consultation time, with consideration to give more time to them, focusing on psychological problems, which needs better doctor-patient communication skills. On the other hand, males' satisfaction didn't show significant correlation with consultation time and other aspects of satisfaction other than consultation itself should be analyzed such as health care system and services (waiting area setting, nurses, pharmacy, and building).