Description:
Patient satisfaction is the degree to which the patients feel that their
expectations and needs met by the service provided. Measuring satisfaction of clients of the
laboratory is one way to discover how laboratory services performed against patients’
expectations and give information on types of laboratory service that need to be improved.
Objective: Tomeasure patientsatisfaction withthe quality of laboratory services in Bele
Primary Hospital.
Methodology: A hospital-basedcross sectional study wasconducted from February 5 to
March 2, 2018 at Bele Primary Hospital. A systematic random sampling technique was
employed to recruit participants. Face to face, interview was conducted by using
pretestedstructured questionnaires to collect quantitative data. Qualitative data were
collected by taking comments and complains from key respondents at the end of quantitative
data collection. A 5-point Liker scales and their weighted average used to categorize
satisfaction level of the patients. Data were entered in to Epi-info version 7.0 and analyzed
using SPSS version 20. The association and strength between the outcome and independent
variables dependant was determined by using odds ratio in the binary logistic regression. In
addition, the open-ended questionnaire findings were transcribed, coded and thematically
analyzed.
Result: About 252 (60%) of the patients were satisfied by the laboratory services in Bele
primary Hospital with a 100 % response rate. 94.3 % of patients were happy with the privacy
during specimen collection and 87.6% were satisfied with cleanliness of the laboratory
room. Turnaround time of test results in less than 1hour, 1hour to 2 hour and educational
level are independent predictors for patient satisfaction (p< 0.05). The open-ended
questionnaire results described under the four themes: patient centeredness, causes for long
waiting time, shortage of equipments and facility conditions.
Conclusion: The observed level of overall satisfaction in the current study was 60% and
patients highly satisfied by cleanliness of laboratory and patient privacy but patients less
satisfied by cleanliness of latrine and turnaround time to get test results.