Factors associated with outpatient experience of Chinese public hospitals: a cross-sectional study

• Published in: The Lancet (British edition) 2017-12, Vol.390, p.S38-S38
• Main Authors: Xie, Jinzhu, Hu, Yinhuan, Lu, Chuntao
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cross-sectional studies; Data collection; Data processing
• ISSN: 0140-6736; 1474-547X
• DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)33176-8

Patient experience is an important indicator of health-care quality from the patient's view and has a better evidence-based characteristic than patient satisfaction. In this study, we compared the experience among different outpatient groups and explored the influencing factors of the outpatient experience to improve outpatient experience and the health-service quality of public hospitals in China. Six comprehensive public hospitals in Hubei, China, were chosen by typical sampling method and including three tertiary hospitals and three secondary hospitals. In each hospital, 100 outpatients were invited to participate in the survey when they ended their visits. The questionnaire had good reliability and validity (the Cronbach's α coefficient of the overall questionnaire was 0·948). The inclusion criteria of participants were: (1) aged ≥18 years; (2) visit procedure were completed; and (3) ability to describe their experience accurately. A five-point Likert scale was used in the questionnaire. Outpatient experience score was calculated by transforming the five-point into hundred-marked system (score 5=100 points; score 4=75 points; score 3=50 points; scorer 2=25 points; score 1=0 points. 100 points means best experience, 0 points means worst experience. The cross-sectional survey was done by data collection. One-way Anova and independent t-test were used to assess the difference between demographic variables in outpatient experience. Multiple linear regression was used to assess how those demographic variables affected the experience. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (IORG number IORG0003571). Of the 600 participants who were eligible for inclusion, 17 were excluded because of missing data in the questionnaires and logical errors, and 583 eligible questionnaires were included for further analysis. 176 respondents had a poor experience (score