Satisfaction of COVID-19 Patients with Health Care Facilities during Pandemic and Its Association with Knowledge, Attitude & Practice

Aims: Patient satisfaction is critical for ensuring the quality of the healthcare system, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The public's knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) concerning COVID-19 may affect patient satisfaction. Since patient satisfaction and KAP plays an important role in controlling any public health crisis, the current study was conducted.

Study Design: Community-based cross-sectional study.

Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted in the Department of Physiology, SMS Medical College, Jaipur. The survey was done between January and March 2021 for residents of the Jaipur district.

Methodology: The present study is conducted via an online survey after the approval of the ethics committee. The Google Forms questionnaire link was shared on various WhatsApp groups. The data were collected about patient’s satisfaction and KAP from those (n=68) who had been admitted to any of the hospitals in past for COVID-19. The collected data were analyzed by the student chi-square and Pearson’s correlation to find any association between different variables. A p-value <.05 was considered as significant.

Results: More than half of hospitalized patients were satisfied with doctors, particularly with the medical explanation of COVID-19, treatment plan, and hospital stay. No discernible difference was depicted in patient satisfaction scores between private (47.27) and government (48.29) hospitals. Patients' satisfaction was significantly positively correlated with good COVID-19 knowledge (r=.511) and practices (r=.385).

Conclusion: The present research found that the majority of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were satisfied with healthcare services, and knowledge and practice have positive association with patients’ hospital satisfaction levels. Therefore, we must increase the patient's understanding about the disease so that the patient is satisfied with the therapy received, which may improve the treatment compliance and doctor-patient relationship.