Questioning patient satisfaction: An empirical investigation in two outpatient clinics

Mark Avis, Meg Bond and Antony Arthur

Social Science & Medicine, 1997, vol. 44, issue 1, 85-92

Abstract: Although patient satisfaction is a commonly applied measure when evaluating health services, there are lingering doubts about its validity. This paper will examine the model of satisfaction which presumes that patients judge their level of satisfaction by comparing their experience of care with their prior expectations by reporting on an interview-based study of patients' views in a cardiology and respiratory medicine outpatient clinic. The findings of the study suggest that the widely used model of patient satisfaction provides only limited understanding of the way that patients evaluate their care. The paper identifies problems with the measurement of patient satisfaction, and encourages less structured approaches to obtaining patients' views.

Keywords: patient; satisfaction; lay; evaluation; outpatient; care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(96)00140-2
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:44:y:1997:i:1:p:85-92

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().