SETTING: A cross-sectional study on public universities in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
PARTICIPANTS: All participants in this study were international students joining public universities in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
PRIMARY INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: Perceived quality of healthcare services measured on a SERVQUAL scale.
PRIMARY DEPENDENT VARIABLE: Participants' satisfaction of healthcare services assessed using five items.
SECONDARY DEPENDENT VARIABLE: Behavioural intentions measured on six items.
RESULTS: Of the 556 international students, 500 (90%) completed the survey. The study used structural equation modelling (SEM) through the AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures) software to analyse the data. SEM analyses showed that the perceived quality of healthcare services significantly and directly affected satisfaction, with a value of 89% and an effect size of 0.78. It also had a significant indirect impact on the behavioural intentions (0.78) of international students. The results indicated that participants' satisfaction had a statistically significant impact on their behavioural intentions (0.77).
CONCLUSION: Perceived quality of care is an important driver of international students' satisfaction and their behavioural intention with healthcare services. Such relations of effects among the three investigated factors were also positive and significant.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Public Health Clinic Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PHC-PSQ) towards pharmacy services was developed using exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach's α. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 400 patients visiting the pharmacy in three randomly selected public health clinics recruited via systematic random sampling. Data was collected using a set of questionnaire including PHC-PSQ. Factors associated with patient satisfaction was analysed using multiple linear regression.
RESULTS: Final PHC-PSQ consisted of three domains (administrative competency, technical competency and convenience of location) and 22 items with 69.9% total variance explained. Cronbach's α for total items was 0.96. Total mean score for patient satisfaction was 7.56 (SD 1.32). Older age and higher education were associated with lower patient satisfaction mean score. Patients who had visited the pharmacy more than once in the past three months, perceived to be in better health status and had a more correct general knowledge of pharmacists expressed higher patient satisfaction mean score.
CONCLUSIONS: PHC-PSQ is a newly developedtool to measure patient satisfaction towards pharmacy services in public health clinics in Malaysia. Patient satisfaction was relatively high. Age, education, frequency of visit, self-perceived health status and general knowledge of pharmacists were factors significantly associated with patient satisfaction.
DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey conducted between April and May 2017.
SETTING: Forty public clinics in Malaysia.
PARTICIPANTS: A total of 956 adult patients with T2D and/or hypertension were interviewed.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Patient experience on SMS was evaluated using a structured questionnaire of the short version Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care instrument, PACIC-M11. Linear regression analysis adjusting for complex survey design was used to determine the association of patient and clinic factors with PACIC-M11 scores.
RESULTS: The overall PACIC-M11 mean was 2.3(SD,0.8) out of maximum of 5. The subscales' mean scores were lowest for patient activation (2.1(SD,1.1)) and highest for delivery system design/decision support (2.9(SD,0.9)). Overall PACIC-M11 score was associated with age, educational level and ethnicity. Higher overall PACIC-M11 ratings was observed with increasing difference between actual and expected consultation duration [β = 0.01; 95% CI (0.001, 0.03)]. Better scores were also observed among patients who would recommend the clinic to friends and family [β = 0.19; 95% CI (0.03, 0.36)], when health providers were able to explain things in ways that were easy to understand [β = 0.34; 95% CI (0.10, 0.59)] and knew about patients' living conditions [β = 0.31; 95% CI (0.15, 0.47)].
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicated patients received low levels of SMS. PACIC-M11 ratings were associated with age, ethnicity, educational level, difference between actual and expected consultation length, willingness to recommend the clinic and provider communication skills.
METHODS: The methodological and cross-sectional study design was used to translate, culturally adapt it, and validate PSPSQ 2.0 in Nepalese. The Nepalese version of PSPSQ 2.0 went through the full linguistic validation process and was evaluated in 300 patients visiting different community pharmacies in Kathmandu district, Nepal. Exploratory factor analysis was carried out using principal component analysis with varimax rotation, and Cronbach's alpha was used to evaluate the reliability.
RESULTS: Three-hundred patients were recruited in this study. Participants ranged in age from 21 to 83 years; mean age was 53.93 years (SD: 15.21). 62% were females, and 34% educational level was above 12 and university level. Only 7% of the participants were illiterate. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkinwas found to be 0.696, and Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant with a chi-square test value of 3695.415. A principal axis factor analysis conducted on the 20 items with orthogonal rotation (varimax). PSPSQ 2.0 Nepalese version (20 items) had a good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.758). Item-total correlations were reviewed for the items in each of the three domains of PSPSQ 2.0.
CONCLUSION: The PSPSQ 2.0 Nepalese version demonstrated acceptable validity and reliability, which can be used in the Nepalese population for evaluating the satisfaction of patients with pharmacist services in both community pharmacy and research.
METHODS: Fifty-five patients with achalasia cardia who underwent laparoscopic Heller myotomy between 2010 and 2019 were enrolled. The adverse events and clinical outcomes were analyzed. Overall patient satisfaction was also reviewed.
RESULTS: The mean operative time was 144.1 ± 38.33 min with no conversions to open surgery in this series. Intraoperative adverse events occurred in 7 (12.7%) patients including oesophageal mucosal perforation (n = 4), superficial liver injury (n = 1), minor bleeding from gastro-oesophageal fat pad (n = 1) & aspiration during induction requiring bronchoscopy (n = 1). Mean time to normal diet intake was 3.2 ± 2.20 days. Mean postoperative stay was 4.9 ± 4.30 days and majority of patients (n = 46; 83.6%) returned to normal daily activities within 2 weeks after surgery. The mean follow-up duration was 18.8 ± 13.56 months. Overall, clinical success (Eckardt ≤ 3) was achieved in all 55 (100%) patients, with significant improvements observed in all elements of the Eckardt score. Thirty-seven (67.3%) patients had complete resolution of dysphagia while the remaining 18 (32.7%) patients had some occasional dysphagia that was tolerable and did not require re-intervention. Nevertheless, all patients reported either very satisfied or satisfied and would recommend the procedure to another person.
CONCLUSIONS: Laparoscopic Heller myotomy and anterior Dor is both safe and effective as a definitive treatment for treating achalasia cardia. It does have a low rate of oesophageal perforation but overall has a high degree of patient satisfaction with minimal complications.
DESIGN: Prospective observational study.
SETTING: PICU in a tertiary care pediatric hospital.
PATIENTS: All English-literate parents whose child was admitted to our PICU between February 2014 and February 2015 were eligible after informed consent was obtained. Parents included in this study in previous admission(s) were excluded.
INTERVENTION: Nil.
MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: We adapted Empowerment of Parent in the Intensive Care Questionnaire, a validated questionnaire survey specific for measuring parental satisfaction in PICUs. This adapted survey consisted of 31 questions (based on a scale of 1-6) examining five domains as follows: information giving, care and cure, parental participation, organization, and professional attitude. Reliability of Empowerment of Parent in the Intensive Care Questionnaire in our population was analyzed using Cronbach's alpha. We used ordinal logistic regression, controlling for socioeconomic status and educational level, to examine differences in parental perceptions of various ethnicities. We obtained a total of 206 responses (36.5%) from 543 admissions. There were 116 (56%) emergency and 90 (44%) elective admissions. The proportion of respondents were Chinese (126 [61%]), Malay (32 [16%]), Indian (23 [11%]), and "Others" (25 [12%]). Cronbach's alpha for domains of information giving (α = 0.80), care and cure (α = 0.93), parental participation (α = 0.84), organization (α = 0.79), and professional attitude (α = 0.88) were good. In all five domains, our median PICU scores were 6 (interquartile range, 5-6). Compared to other ethnic groups, Malay parents did perceive that domains of "care and cure," "parental participation," and "professional attitude" were less satisfactory.
CONCLUSIONS: Significant differences were found in satisfaction ratings between parents of different ethnicities. Further studies are needed to explore and determine reasons for these differences.