Patient-Physician Communicative Patterns, Physician's Job Satisfaction, and Patient's Satisfaction: The Case of a Hospital in Isfahan

Background and Now-a-days, patient satisfaction is increasingly receiving the attention of health-service providers, which is a necessary step to enhance the quality of health services. The present study aimed at exploring patient-physician communicative patterns, physicians’ job satisfaction, and patients’ satisfaction at Isfahan, Iran. This study was a descriptive analytical and cross-sectional survey in the summer of 2010. Simple random sampling was used to select participants. Data were collected through using three self-designed questionnaires on physicians’ job satisfaction, patient-physician relationship patterns (based on Hollander and Szase’ ideas), and patients’ satisfaction. Validity of the questionnaire was checked by a panel of experts. Furthermore, internal consistency reliability of the questionnaires was confirmed by Cronbach’s alpha (α = 0.80). Different dimensions of the job satisfaction questionnaire were salary, supervision, setting, promotion, fringe benefits, and working conditions. Data were analyzed by using SPSS for Windows 13.0 software. The mean score of patient-physician relationship was 63. Therefore, the most frequent patient-physician communication pattern was guidance-cooperation. The mean score of physician’ job satisfaction was 50.2. The mean score of patients’ satisfaction was 86.5. Physicians’ job satisfaction was found to be related to patient-physician communication pattern (P < 0.05). Although patient-physician communication patterns are important, different variable such as patients’ and physicians’ satisfaction influence the patterns. Furthermore, improvement communication process between health care providers can be useful in the increasing patient satisfaction and patient quality of care.