Effect of patient-centred care on patient satisfaction with care among type-2 diabetes mellitus patients in an urban hospital in Lokoja, north central Nigeria

Abstract

Background: As the number of patients with chronic health conditions like diabetes mellitus (DM) continues to increase, health systems cannot cope if they continue to focus on the disease rather than the person. This requires a good doctor-patient encounter which will motivate the patients to adhere to treatment, make behavioural changes, and to self-manage their problems. There is a growing realisation that patient-centred care (PCC) which addresses the needs and preferences of patients may also be the most cost effective way to improve health outcomes for the growing number of patients with chronic conditions.

Aims: To compare Patient Centred Care with routine care in terms of patient satisfaction in type 2 DM patients and to have a baseline data for future studies.

Methods: This was a hospital based randomized control trial carried out between December 2016 and May 2017. A systematic sampling technique was used to select 34 type-2 DM patients from 30 to 80 years of age. Each group had 17 subjects allocated using even and odd numbers inside an envelope from which patient made their free choices.

A self-administered patient satisfaction questionnaire (MISS 21 questionnaire) was then given to them after they have left the consultation room, so they could be free to express themselves and the satisfaction scores were stored in the computer. The data collected, was then collated, coded manually, and analyzed using SPSS 16 computer software.

Results: In the intervention group, 10 respondents were female while 7 were male; in the control group, 9 respondents were female and 8 were male. The difference between the control and the intervention group was not significant. The application of the PCC during the consultation led to significantly higher patient satisfaction (88.2%) than the control group (41.2%), p = 0.014, amongst type 2 DM patients. The study also revealed that the mean satisfaction score at the end of the study was significantly higher in the study group (4.8+0.524) than that of the control (3.8+0.725), p ≤ 0.001.

Conclusion: The use of patient-centred care technique of consultation significantly improves patient satisfaction with care among type 2 DM patients.

Keywords: Patient-centred care, Satisfaction, Type-2 diabetes, Consultation