Effective Factors on Patients' Satisfaction with Emergency Care Services using Factor Analysis: A Cross Sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: Due to certain physical and psychological conditions of patients in emergency wards, pay attention to the effective factors on Patients' satisfaction is an essential issue in modern medicine. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effective factors on Patients' satisfaction with emergency medical services. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was carried out from November to December 2010. The study sample consisted of 100 patients hospitalized in the emergency wards of Imam and Mustafa Hospitals in Ilam- Iran. Subjects were selected through simple random sampling method. Data gathered using questioner. The questioner validity was obtained using the content validity. Reliability of questionnaire was checked using Cronbach alpha coefficient. To find the most important factors affecting patient satisfaction, factorial analysis technique was used. RESULT: Exploratory factor analysis showed that the Patients' satisfaction is composed of six factors, including: satisfaction of physicians, nursing staff, the presence of students, the method of reception and discharge, deciding to cure and knowing the position of the therapist. Base on the results of the factorial analysis, the most important aspect of satisfaction was the satisfaction of physicians. The results revealed significant relationships between the occurrence time and the satisfaction of physician (r = 0.23, p=0.027), the number of visits and the satisfaction of physician (r =0.27, p=0.01), the time of visits and the satisfaction of physician (p= 0.016), also between occurrence time and the number of visit (r = 0.36, p=0.001). CONCLUSION: Physicians and nurses actions and decision making are the major affecting factors satisfaction in emergency patients. Thus improving the quality of these factors will improve the quality of emergency services for patients