Assessment of Patients’ Satisfaction Towards General Medical Laboratory Services at Shenen Gibe Public Hospital, Jimma Town, South West Ethiopia

Background: A rapid transformation is undergoing to meet the ever-increasing needs and demands of patients population in health care industry. Satisfaction is the extent to which the client feels their needs are fulfilled and their expectations are being met by the service provider. Furthermore, understanding the level of customer satisfaction and identifying the factors hindering client satisfaction are the most important base lines to improve the quality of service being delivered.Objective: The aim of this study is to assess patients` satisfaction towards medical laboratory services at Shenen Gibe Hospital.Materials and method: A hospital based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from April to May 2016. Patients` satisfaction toward laboratory services were assessed by using an exit interview based questionnaire. Statistical analysis was performed by using SPSS version soft 20 soft ware. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between dependent and independent variables. P value less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant association.Results: A total of 379 study participants were involved in the study. Of these, 205(54.1%) were males. About 37.4% of the respondents were found in the age range of 28-37years. Majority, 240(63.3%) of the study participants were found to be satisfied towards medical laboratory services provided at Shenengibe Public hospital, 96(25.3%) were dissatisfied whereas 43(11.3%) were neutral . Provision of adequate information to collect specimen (AOR=7.6, 95% C.I. =2.89-9.23, P value =0.002) and when & how to receive laboratory results (AOR= 8.1, 95% C.I=2.3-12.6, P value =0.007), respect from laboratory personnel (AOR=3.56, 95% C.I =2.87-3.99, P value =0.004) as well as less than 30 minutes( AOR=4.6, 95% C.I.=3.78-7.1 , P value =0.003) and between 1 and 2 hours(AOR=5.3, 95% C.I.=4.51-16.9, P value =0.000 ) waiting time to receive laboratory results were the determinant factors to overall of patients` satisfaction toward medical laboratory services.Conclusion: Overall, the satisfaction level of study participants toward medical laboratory services was 63.3%. Customer satisfaction, particularly patients` satisfaction is the corner stone of medical laboratory medicine and it is one part of quality indicators. Thus, it is very essential to improve the quality of services provided in hospital laboratories in order to fulfill the expectation of patients. Keywords: Patient satisfaction, medical laboratory services, Jimm