Patient Experiences of Hospital Stay in Alborz Governmental Hospitals

Attaining the patient's viewpoints and evaluating their experiences are reliable and important resources for determining the problems and appraising healthcare improvement. This study aimed to investigate the experiences of patients who hospitalized in hospitals of Alborz province.
In this descriptive cross-sectional study 955 patients discharged from nine governmental hospitals were selected by stratified random sampling method and participated in this study. The questionnaire that its validity and reliability had been confirmed was used to assess patient's experiences of hospital stay.
More than half of the participants (56.4%) were female. The most frequent age group (34.3%) was the age group of 20 to 30 years. 45.4% of patients experienced a perfect organization in reception sector in emergency ward, and 42.5% of patients experienced a perfect organization in reception sector of non-emergency wards. In sum, 79.4% of patients assessed the hospital healthcare services in good level (or higher) and 35.9% stated that they would recommend the hospital to others.
The results indicates the need for designing and implementing the programs to improve patient's experiences in the areas of reception and discharge sectors organization, physical environment and facilities, communication with doctors and nurses, respectfulness, through training and empowerment of staff of hospitals and improving the existing infrastructure in the hospital.