Perspectives of Service Users While Choosing a Clinical Laboratory for Testing

Critical role of laboratory tests in diagnosis, prognosis and treatment, demands that client receives a quality report. The clients lack knowledge about reliability of the reports and role of accreditation in quality measures.

To study perception of users regarding services availed at clinical laboratory.

Data were collected from 537 users through pretested structured interviews. The interview schedule elicited information on socio-demographic characteristics, factors influencing the choice of laboratory, quality of laboratory services, awareness about accreditation and its impact on laboratory services. Perception of the users were recorded using 5-point Likert scale.

The factors that influenced the decision of the users included treating physician's referral (52.7%), proximity of the laboratory (39.1%), good quality services (35.0%) and quality of the report (32.0%). Convenient timings, provision of home services (10.8%) and internet review (7.3%) were less important factors. Cost and turnaround-time are not the major concerns in decision-making. Over 75% of the users rated the laboratories as good to excellent on the parameters; quality of report, services provided at laboratories, staff behaviour, time required and overall impression about laboratory. Around 31% of the users were aware about accreditation. Majority (90%) of patients feels that accreditation should be mandatory. They believed that accreditation will increase reliability of the report (77.6%). 27% and 17.1% of the users feel that accreditation will decrease the cost of testing and turnaround time, respectively.

Decision of the users regarding selection of laboratory is influenced by the advice of the treating physician. The present survey highlighted ignorance regarding accreditation among the laboratory users. Efforts shall be taken to generate demand among general population for accurate and precise diagnostic report.