Gender difference on patients satisfaction and expectation towards mental health care

Background: Recognizing patient satisfaction and expectation is considered as important components of assessing quality of care. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the gender difference on the patient satisfaction with psychiatrists and explore their expectation from physicians to mental health care needs. Design: This is a prospective cross sectional study conducted during the period from April 2009 to July 2009. Setting: Psychiatry hospital of the Hamad Medical Corporation. Subjects: A total of 1300 psychiatry patients aged 18 to 65 years were approached and 1054 (81.1%) patients participated in this study. The study sample included only Qatari and other Arab nationals. Materials and Methods: The study was based on a face to face interview with a designed Patient Doctor Relationship Questionnaire (PDRQ). A standard forward-backward procedure was applied to translate the English version of the PDRQ to Arabic. The main outcome measures of the study were 13-item patient doctor relationship questionnaire (PDRQ) score and other 11 items assessing what patients need from psychiatrists. Also, Socio-demographic data of the patients were collected. PDRQ was administered by qualified nurses among the psychiatry patients. Results: Of the studied patients, 50.9% were males and 49.1% were females. Male patients (55.5%) were more satisfied with the treatment of psychiatrists than females (44.5%). A significant association was observed between male and female patients in terms of marital status (P = 0.02), number of children (P < 0.001), education level (P = 0.001) and monthly household income (P = 0.03). The satisfaction level significantly increased with higher education in both the groups (P = 0.001). The satisfaction level of male patients was significantly higher than female patients in most of the satisfaction areas (P % 0.001). Male patients had significantly high expectations from psychiatrists than females (P < 0.001). Both the groups had different attitude in assessing mental health needs. Conclusion: The study findings revealed that in general, psychiatry patients were quite satisfied with the services provided by the psychiatrists and the study found a gender difference in their satisfaction level with the mental health care. Male patients had significantly greater expectations from psychiatrists than females. The individuals of lower socio-economic status and less education tend to be less satisfied with the mental health care.