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Patients’ Satisfaction with the Quality of Medical Laboratory Services in a Nigerian Private Tertiary Health Facility
Abstract
Background: Hospital laboratory services are indispensable for disease detection, diagnostic confirmation, and therapeutic decision-making. Lack of national policy and strategy, poor access to laboratory services, unhygienic laboratory environment, long waiting time, poor patient-provider communication, non-availability of requested tests, poor attitude of laboratory staff, and lack of properly designed laboratories are factors that affect patients' satisfaction with laboratory services. There is limited data on patients' satisfaction with medical laboratory services in Ogun State and Nigeria at large.
Objective: To assess patients’ satisfaction with the quality of medical laboratory services and associated factors in a private tertiary health facility in Ogun State, Nigerian.
Methods: The study was carried out at Babcock University Teaching Hospital in Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria. The study was descriptive and cross-sectional in design. The study population was adult patients accessing medical services at the Babcock University Teaching Hospital laboratory. Patients' satisfaction with medical laboratory services was assessed using the Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ-18).
Results: The highest mean satisfaction score was recorded for technical quality (4.07 ± 0.46), followed by overall satisfaction (3.99 ± 0.40), while the lowest mean scores were observed for both communication (3.69 ± 0.83) and accessibility of care (3.69 ± 0.44), respectively. General satisfaction was significantly associated with waiting time (p<0.01) and cost of laboratory services (p = 0.046), while satisfaction with finance was significantly associated with age (p = 0.021), education (p = 0.04), occupation (p = 0.005), and cost of laboratory services (p = 0.022).
Conclusion: Hospital management should make efforts to improve the accessibility of laboratory services and the communication skills of laboratory staff.
