A study to determine the patient satisfaction and quality of services at the outpatient urology clinic of a tertiary care hospital

Introduction
Patient satisfaction is one of the benchmarks by which the quality of health care services is evaluated. The objective of this study was to assess the patients' satisfaction with services delivered at the urology outpatient clinic of Colombo South Teaching Hospital (CSTH), Sri Lanka.

Method
A descriptive cross-sectional study was done over three months (1.12.2019 – 28.2.2020) at the urology outpatient clinic of a tertiary care hospital in Sri Lanka. A pre-tested, self-administered questionnaire based on the SERVQUAL questionnaire was used to collect data. Seven questions were based on demography and eighteen were aimed at assessing responsiveness, tangibles, empathy and reliability. The Likert scale was used to determine the level of satisfaction.

Results
The study sample constituted of 220 patients. Nearly one third (32%) of them felt the waiting time to be registered at the clinic and to meet a doctor were too long. More than half (59%) said the clinic was overcrowded. However, over 90% of the patients perceived that staff characteristics, laboratory services and waiting time from the date of referral to the clinic appointment were satisfactory. Nearly 93% of the participants would recommend the clinic to a friend or a relative for seeking treatment.

Conclusions
Although patient satisfaction was good in many domains, by developing a better mechanism of giving appointments spread throughout the clinic, patient satisfaction and the quality of services provided at the urology outpatient clinic can be improved further.