Patient Satisfaction with Nursing Care in Public and Private Hospitals

Patient satisfaction has become an important indicator to measure the quality of care rendered to the patients while in hospital. Patient satisfaction surveys can help identify ways of improving nursing and health care services. The present study was planned to assess the patient satisfaction with nursing care in selected public and private hospitals. It was found that mean patient satisfaction with nursing care score was significantly higher in private hospitals (80.83 15.88) as compared to public hospitals (64.88 21.36) (P<0.001). Patient satisfaction with nursing was not different in selected medical, surgical, orthopedics and maternity unit; while it was significantly higher in all the units in private hospitals as compared to public hospitals (p<0.001). Patient satisfaction in all the selected eight dimensions of nursing care score was significantly higher in private hospitals as compared to public hospitals (P<0.001). However, communication and offering emotional support dimensions of nursing care had lowest score in both private and public hospitals. Therefore, it is recommended to plan and implement the training programs needed for nurses to improve their knowledge and skills of communication and use of emotional support measures for the patients.