Patient satisfaction with service waiting time at a tertiary hospital in Southwest, Nigeria

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Patient is an individual who suffers from one form of pain or the other and seeks immediate attention in a health facility in order to calm his/her burden. Undue delay in attending to patients at various service points places a negative impact on patients’ perception of quality of service, which often adversely affects hospital utilization. The study therefore wishes to determine average outpatient waiting time, establish waiting time trends in service areas and determine patient satisfaction with services waiting time. Methods/Design: The study adopted a survey research design. The study population were the patient attending outpatient clinics at Federal Medical Centre, Owo, Nigeria. Data analysis was done using SPSS Version 23. Results: The study reveals that among other things, in Health Information Management department, average waiting and service time was 27.1 min, at nursing station, 41.4 min, for medical consultation, 57.2 min and patient spent an average of 52.1 min receiving pharmaceutical services. Of the patients, 51.2% were dissatisfied with the current waiting time for accessing health care services, 45.2% were satisfied while 3.6% could not ascertain Conclusion: The study concluded that greater percentage of the patient were dissatisfied with current waiting time for accessing care. Therefore, the study recommends commencement of afternoon clinics, adherence to clinic appointments, the use of electronic payment, employment or deployment of more staff and the use of electronic medical records to reduce the undue prolong patient waiting time for an improved patient satisfaction.