The satisfaction of infertile patients with the quality of medical services in Tehran university of medical sciences hospitals during the year 2020-2021

Patient satisfaction is considered as one of the most important elements of the evaluation of healthcare centers. In this research, the level of satisfaction of infertile patients was evaluated.

This study is a cross-sectional descriptive study. The research population is infertile patients who referred to the infertility clinic (at least 4 visits) and hospitalized in four hospitals affiliated with the Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The satisfaction questionnaire was valid researcher-made which included 56 questions in 9 areas, and were collected from May 2021 to September 2022. In order to comply with the ethical principles in research, hospitals were named 1-4.The results were analyzed using the chi-square test or Fisher's exact test for qualitative variables and analysis of variance for quantitative variables in SPSS software, version 24 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, US).

Results:

 Three hundred–four infertile women in four hospitals were studied. The mean age of the participants was 33.8 years, with a standard deviation of 5.8 years. The average satisfaction with admission and discharge services, medical services, nutrition, accounting, and insurance services in the number-1 Hospital had the highest score, and the average satisfaction with nursing or midwifery services, diagnostic and therapeutic services (radiology/laboratory), hospital services, charter patient rights, management services, paid expenses in Hospital 4 received the most points. The mean score of satisfaction was the highest among those who visited the infertility clinic of Hospital 3 (161.54±21.41). Average satisfaction with admission and discharge services, medical services, nutrition, accounting, and insurance services in Hospital No. 1 had the highest score, and average satisfaction with nursing or midwifery services, medical diagnostic services (radiology/laboratory), hospital services, respecting the patient's rights, management services, paid expenses in hospital number 4 got the most points. The average of nursing or midwifery services, respecting the patient's rights, and hotelling in all hospitals received the highest score, respectively, and nutrition services and paid expenses received the lowest points (most dissatisfaction) (P<0.05).

The level of satisfaction of women referring to the infertility clinic in 35.9% of cases was considered to be at an appropriate and exceptional level, in 49.3% of cases it was at a partially appropriate level, and in 14.8% at an inappropriate level.