Quality of Patient-Centered Care from the Viewpoint of Infertile Clients in the ART Centers of the Hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences

Paying attention to the needs of infertile couples and involving them in the treatment program allows them to deal with this problem more effectively. The patient-centered care is based on the principle that all resources and activities of the organization should be organized around the patient. This study was performed with aim to evaluate the quality of patient-centered care from the viewpoints of infertile clients.

This descriptive study was performed in 2019 on 200 infertile clients referring to the assisted reproductive centers of Shahid Beheshti selected hospitals. Data were collected using a patient-centered questionnaire in infertile clients. This questionnaire consists of 50 questions in 8 areas including: access, information, communication, patient participation, respect for patient values, patient's continuity and support, staff's competence and care organization area; the minimum score in each area is zero and maximum is 3. Data were analyzed using SPSS software (version 18) and descriptive and regression tests.

According to the results, the most infertility factor was related to female factor with 132 cases (66.0%) and then the common factor of male and female with 62 cases (31.0%). The mean duration of infertility was 5.35±3.67 years. The results of this study showed that in the score range between 0 and 3, the mean focus of patients in infertility treatment was 1.50. The lowest patient-centered score was related to access area (0.37 from 3) and the highest was related to care organization area (2.40 from 3).

According to the results of the study, the quality of patient-centered care has been obtained moderate-level (1.5) from the desired level (3). It is necessary to reform the infrastructure of the country's health system and the patient-centered approach be widely trained and implemented in the country. In order to make this important, we should identify the influencing factors on patient-centered care.