Explorations in Satisfaction-Impact of Time of Survey Administration on Perceptions of Patient Satisfaction

Abstract

This descriptive study was conducted to examine the impact of timing of patient satisfaction surveys on perceived levels of patient satisfaction and to compare this with the impact of client and context variables on patient satisfaction. This was a secondary analysis, using data from the IMPACT study (Verran, Lamb & Effken, 2001). Timing of survey reflects satisfaction data collected from one group of patients pre-discharge from the study hospital and from another group of patients post -discharge. Analysis of the data suggests that the post- discharge method of survey resulted in a higher level of patient satisfaction (p < .05) in three subscales. Pearson correlation and regression analysis compared the impact of time of survey on patient satisfaction with impact of client and context variables on the same satisfaction subscales. In this analysis, the results indicate that for the General Satisfaction subscale, the primary explanatory variables are age and number of symptoms. The time of survey administration is not a significant variable when the effect of the other variables is removed. However, for the Caring and Individual subscales all three variables are significant with an approximately equal effect.