Characteristics of Participated Health Facilities
Sixty public hospitals (31 primary, 20 general, 6 Referral and 3 specialized hospitals) were selected and included in this national survey. Two thousand three hundred ninety-nine patients were selected from the public hospitals and all of them were participated in this survey. These patients were selected from primary hospitals (756), general hospitals (913), referral hospitals (464), and specialized hospitals (266). As the level of hospital increased the number of tests provided to customers was also increased. Out of surveyed health facilities, 78.3% (49) of them could not provide uninterrupted service in the previous one year due to reagent stock out (87.8% (43)) and machine downtime (12.2% (6)).
Socio-demographic Characteristics of the participants
Among the study participants, 53.1% of them were females and 73.2% were married. The mean age and standard deviation of the study participants were 34.19, 13.05 years, respectively. Approximately, 60% of the participants were urban residence. Regarding educational status, 25.8% of them were illiterate, half of them were primary and secondary school completers and 23.5% had college and above educational level. Almost one-third of the respondents were farmers, 19% were government employed, 21.5% were engaged in private sectors and 29.6% were with other occupations and unemployed. Nearly, half of the participants came to the laboratory for the first time to get the service. Detail summary result is described in Table 1.
Patients’ Satisfaction Level with Laboratory Service
Overall Satisfaction Level
The overall satisfaction level of patients with public hospital laboratory services was 78.6%, the rest customers (21.4%) were dissatisfied with the laboratory services. More than half of the patients were dissatisfied with blood collection processes (many needle stick attempts), poor cleanness of latrine, poor facilities or arrangements to put personnel things during sample collection on the other hand they satisfied with the presence of lab personnel during working hour at reception, courtesy of laboratory personnel, and price.
Patients’ Satisfaction with Access to Facilities
According to our finding, nearly 19%, 22% and 21% of the respondents could not find the location of the laboratory, cashier office and latrine easily, respectively. They complained that they lost a long time by searching for the locations and feel very disappointed (see Table 3).
Patients’ Satisfaction with Cost of Service
The cost of service is crucial to the users of public hospitals, they may have a positive perception or not for the provided service. This study indicated that 83% of the respondents (64% of them said the cost was fair and 19% served freely) were satisfied with the payment of the services, while 17% of the respondents perceived that laboratory test charges were not fair (see Table 3).
Patients’ Satisfaction with Sample Collection Process
Nearly, 82% of the participants received all the requested laboratory services. Regarding the availability of staff during working hour, 77.3% of the participants were satisfied. The patients’ perception of courtesy during interaction with lab personnel, 67.3% of them were satisfied. Concerning adequacy and availability of sitting arrangement in the waiting area, 45% and 25% of the respondents were satisfied, and dissatisfied respectively. Almost 63% of the respondents were satisfied with the cleanness of the waiting area. Nearly half of the respondents (47.3%) were dissatisfied with the cleanness of the latrine during the survey period (Table 2).
Patients’ Satisfaction with Waiting Time
Most of the respondents (88.31%) were not informed or aware of how long each test takes to get the result (turnaround time), while the rest respondents were informed about turnaround time. Out of these informed patients, 29.8% of them did not receive their result within the set turnaround time of each test (Table 2).
Patient and Laboratory Personnel Communication/ Interaction
Out of the total respondents, nearly 67% of them were satisfied with the courtesy of laboratory personnel, and 26% of them were unsatisfied with the orientation or advisory services provided to them before sample collection. When assessing respondents’ satisfaction with the clarity and adequacy of information they got, where, when and how much specimen (stool, urine, sputum) was collected by themselves (n=1,788), half of them were satisfied and 17.8% were dissatisfied. In the same way, from the total participants, 47.5% and 20.8%, of the respondents were satisfied and dissatisfied with clearness of information when, where, and how they received their laboratory results, respectively. On the other hand, nearly 12% of the respondents were unsatisfied due to loss of their laboratory report (Table 2 and 3).
Patients’ Satisfaction with Blood Sample Collection
Nearly, 80% (1921/2399) of the respondents gave a blood sample for different laboratory tests. Out of these respondents, 86.9% of them complained that there was no arrangement in blood drawing room to put their personal belongings in, 25.4% of them left in blood collection area before the bleeding process stopped, 18.27% (351) developed bruise and 14.11% (271) of them punctured more than one times (Figure 1).
Factors that Affect Satisfaction Level of Patients
A simple (one outcome and one exposure) logistic regression was used to identify possible explanatory variables and those variables with a p-value of less than 0.20, were taken to multiple binary logistic regression model. As a result, educational status (P = 0.032), and distance (P = 0.000) were significantly associated with patient overall satisfaction level. On the other hand, sex (P = 0.149), residence (P = 0.25), Occupation (P= 0.35) and marital status (P = 0.35) were not significantly associated with patient satisfaction level (see Table 4).
Respondents who served at specialized hospitals were about 5 times (AOR= 4.6; 95% CI=3.14-6.67) more likely to be dissatisfied than who served at the primary hospital laboratory. Regarding needle stick attempt during blood sample collection, patients who punctured their vein more than 2 attempts were about 3 times (AOR= 2.75; 95% CI= 1.53-4.94) more likely to be dissatisfied than who punctured once (Table 4).