Research on patients' opinion about the quality of inpatient rehabilitation services

Aim of the study. To evaluate patients’ opinion about the quality of inpatient neurological rehabilitation services at the department of rehabilitation of Kaunas Clinical Hospital and its correlation with the efficiency of rehabilitation. Objectives. 1. To evaluate patients’ opinion about the quality of inpatient rehabilitation services. 2. To establish the role of socio-demographic factors on the evaluation of the quality of rehabilitation services. 3. To evaluate the efficiency of rehabilitation services based on the results of self-sufficiency test and mini mental state examination. 4. To determine correlation between the patients’ evaluation of the quality of rehabilitation services and impartial efficiency of rehabilitation. Methods. The questionnaire developed with the reference to R.J. Ferguson was employed for an anonymous survey of patients in the rehabilitation department of Kaunas Clinical Hospital in order to evaluate the opinion of patients about the rehabilitation services. The efficiency of rehabilitation was evaluated having conducted self-sufficiency test (Barthel Index) and mini mental state examination. The impact of socio-demographic factors and the efficiency of rehabilitation on the evaluation of the quality of services have been analysed. SPSS 17.0 and Mann-Whitney U, Chi-square, Student’s t and ANOVA tests were employed for the statistical analysis. Results. 156 patients participated in the research – 63% female patients and 37% male patients. The average age of patients was 70.4 years. 68% of the interviewees lived in towns and 83% were treated in the rehabilitation department for the first time. 96.1% of the interviewed patients evaluated the quality of services as being good and very good. The evaluation of quality of services was higher by female patients than by male patients (p=0.001). The majority of patients (91%) declared they would recommend this department for their relatives and friends and would choose its services themselves (92.4%) if/ when necessary once again. The research showed that the majority of patients assessed the technical and functional aspects of the quality of services positively but the functional quality of services was given a better estimation than the technical one (p=0.001). The elderly patients (over 70 years old) assessed the technical aspects of services better than the younger ones (p = 0.043). Socio-demographic factors had no impact on the general functional evaluation of the quality of services. The self-sufficiency of patients has improved by 24.8 points (Barthel index) and cognitive functions (Mini Mental State Examination) by 2.36 points in the course of the rehabilitation. The efficiency of rehabilitation was estimated in 92% of patients. The efficiency of rehabilitation had no impact on the evaluation of technical or functional aspects of the quality of services by patients. The patients with the declared effective rehabilitation gave a higher evaluation to the overall quality of the received services (p = 0.049) and declared they would use the services of the rehabilitation department when/ if necessary (p = 0.027). Conclusions. 1. The majority of the treated patients were satisfied with the quality of services provided by the inpatient rehabilitation department of Kaunas Clinical Hospital. The functional aspects of services were evaluated better than technical aspects. 2. Female patients gave a better evaluation to the quality of received services than male patients. The overall evaluation of technical aspects of the quality of services highly depended on the age of patients. None of the analysed socio-demographic factors had any impact on the overall evaluation of functional aspects of the quality of services. 3. Rehabilitation services were effective to 78.2% (based on the results of self-sufficiency test) and 37.2 % of patients (based on the results of mini mental state examination) respectively. Rehabilitation services were ineffective to 8% of patients. 4. The efficiency of rehabilitation had correlation with the patient’s opinion about the overall quality of the provided services. Impartial efficiency of rehabilitation had no correlation to patients’ opinion about technical or functional aspects of quality of the provided services