Patients’ satisfaction with post abortion care services in Mulago Hospital.

Abstract

Background: Post Abortion Care (PAC) is one of the important strategies to save lives in patients with incomplete abortion. Statistics in Mulago Hospital Obs/Gyn. Department show a steady increase of patients seeking for PAC services. Patients’ satisfaction is therefore one way of assessing quality of PAC services offered. Objective: The objective of the study was to assess patients’ satisfaction with post abortion care services for patients with incomplete abortion provided in Mulago Hospital and the factors that determine their level of satisfaction. Methods: The study design was a descriptive cross sectional study. The participants were patients with incomplete abortion discharged from Mulago Hospital. Using consecutive sampling, exit interviews of 384 post abortion patients and 5 in-depth interviews were conducted. Data analysis and management- Data collected was cleaned, coded and entered into a data capture screen designed using Epidata 3.1 and final data analysis was done using STATA.11 Results: The majority of the patients were married, 72.9 %( 280/384), had attained at least secondary/tertiary education and spent less than 24 hours in the hospital. There were lower ratings of satisfaction among patients in the aspects of providing information about family planning (51%) and information on reproductive and other health services (27.9%) as compared to the ratings of respect given to patients by the doctors and nurses (95% and 86.7%) respectively. Patients with higher level of education were dissatisfied with the doctor’s response to questions (P-value=0.00) but education had no influence on other aspects of patients care. Business women and patients with other forms of occupations were dissatisfied (P-value=0.00) with involvement of their family members in making decisions about their treatment. This was the same with the married women who were dissatisfied (P-value=0.04) with the involvement of their family members in decisions regarding their treatment. Conclusions and recommendations-Generally patients were satisfied with PAC services provided in Mulago Hospital. However some aspects of PAC especially Family planning provision passing on information to patients need to be improved. It was also noted that patients had low expectations before coming to seek care in Mulago Hospital.