Abstract
Patient satisfaction is best explained or defined as one’s own personal cognitive evaluation of and/or emotional reaction to, his/her healthcare experience; it is an effective, important and commonly used tool for measuring quality of healthcare. Patient satisfaction is thus a very effective indicator to measure the success of healthcare provided by doctors and healthcare facilities (Prakash, 2010).
Quality in healthcare is measured using an important and common indicator, namely patient satisfaction. The effects of patient satisfaction can be seen in clinical outcomes, patient retention, as well as medical malpractice claims. To determine the success of doctors in clinics and hospitals, patient satisfaction surveys are considered an important tool in this measurement. Measuring patient satisfaction may lead to the enhancement of daily efficiency and effectiveness of practice operations, as well as increase profitability at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Homoeopathy Health Centre. Apart from the mini-surveys conducted each semester on service delivery by the clinic manager, the last in-depth survey conducted on patient satisfaction with homoeopathic treatment at this facility was in 2004, and the results showed the positive experiences to be: affordability of the clinic; quality of the physical examination; friendliness and approachability of the senior homoeopathy students; and the high level of satisfaction regarding their treatment plan. The areas of dissatisfaction were: the clinic’s accessibility; accuracy of diagnosis; and the explanation of their medical condition as well as the explanation of the homoeopathic case taking procedure. The study recommended that follow-up studies be conducted to monitor progress regarding patient education in homoeopathy and the perceived skills of the senior homoeopathic students.
The aim of this study was to assess patient satisfaction and gather data on patient behaviour at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Homoeopathy Health Centre, as an approach to improve the quality of healthcare and service delivery at this facility. This also allowed for the assessment of the level of healthcare received by the community.
From a proposed sample size of 152 participants, once inclusion and exclusion criteria had been applied, a sample of 114 was obtained. The patients’ satisfaction regarding the healthcare received at the UJ Homoeopathy Health Centre was determined by means of a fourteen-item questionnaire. Written permission was requested from the Head of the Department (HOD) of Homoeopathy to allow access to the patient files in the UJ Homoeopathy Health Centre. Once...
M.Tech. (Homoeopathy)