Patient satisfaction in developing countries

Efforts to obtain useful information on patient satisfaction in Indonesia have been frustrated by a tendency of respondents to withhold critical comment. A survey of 75 patients in eleven health centers on three islands attempted to obtain credible information on satisfaction by asking for information on events, not opinions, and on the relative importance of the factors surveyed. Unlike previous research where 95% of respondents typically answered they were 'fully satisfied', 28% of the respondents replied that their consultation had not been conducted in private (ranked first in importance among the nonmedical factors): 65% said the facility could be cleaner (ranked second in importance) and 19-48% reported not receiving various kinds of information (ranked third). Lending credence to these results: the respondents were able to support their positive answers with corroborative information in a high percentage of instances. The ranking of relative importance of satisfaction factors was unexpected. At the bottom of the list were continuity of provider, waiting time, availability of amenities, Cost and social interaction with the provider. Despite the diversity among cultures that is characteristic of Indonesia, there was a high degree of similarity in the importance rankings among respondents on the three islands which were chosen to represent cultural divisions in the nation. The only notable differences in the rankings of relative importance appeared to be a function of the purpose of the visit to the facility. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.