Patient's Perception of Nursing Care at a Large Teaching Hospital in India

Background: As focus has shifted from the healthcare providers to the healthcare consumers; patient satisfaction is being increasingly used worldwide for the assessment of quality of services provided by healthcare institutions. To understand patient satisfaction, "patient's perception" of care must first be understood. Of all the healthcare workers nurses spend maximum time with the patients. Therefore, the nurse is in a unique position to influence and promote effective consumer relationships. Though patient satisfaction surveys with nursing care are routinely conducted in the developed world to monitor and improve the quality of care, the same is not true for the developing world especially in the Indian subcontinent. Objective: To conduct a study of patient's perception of nursing care in a large teaching hospital. Methods: A prospective study spread over a period of one year was carried out. Sample size consisted of seven percent of patients each admitted as emergency and routine. All the randomly selected patients were administered questionnaires, thus obtaining a sample size of 2600. Of these 2500 questionnaires were usable for data analysis (valid response rate of 81.6%). Results: The results of the study revealed a relatively higher percentage of patients with poor perception regarding 'explanation and information', and 'caring attitude' aspects of nursing care (31.6% and 11.5% respectively). However more than 95% patients had good perception of 'responsiveness', 'availability' and 'ward organization' capability of the nurse. Conclusion: Patient satisfaction surveys should become a regular outcome monitoring feature in all the hospitals. Also In-service training programs for nurses, with special emphasis on communication are need of the hour and should become a regular exercise.