Measuring patient satisfaction with anaesthesia care in Enugu: a preliminary study.

Abstract

Aim To measure patients’ satisfaction with anaesthesia care and use it as a tool to provide a feedback on the quality of practice of anesthesia in our centre. To examine the validity of this tool as a means of evaluating anaesthetic care.
Study design This is a prospective questionnaire based study. They were standardised postoperative face to-face interviews with open-and close-ended questions. Patients were chosen by simple random sampling. The questionnaires were administered on the second postoperative day.
The questionnaire was subdivided into a set of questions. Anaesthesia specific rating of preoperative visit, preparation, and anaesthetic administered were assessed on a 3-point scale. A 5-point scale was used to assess the overall rating of anaesthetic care.
Results A total of 43 patients were interviewed. They were 17 males and 26 females. Anaesthesia specific rating showed that 90.1% of patients were satisfied with the preoperative visit, 95.3% with preparation, and 74.4% with anaesthesia. Study design was rated 40/60 using Patient Satisfaction with Anesthesia Care–Analysis Tool (PSACAT).
Conclusion We conclude that the anaesthetic service offered in our centre is reasonably tolerated and acceptable to patients.

Key words: Patient satisfaction, Anaesthesia, Enugu