Patients have a fundamental right to considerate care that safeguards their dignity and, patients’ satisfaction with care service indicates that the health personnel finds it an incumbent upon themselves to make sure of patients’ satisfaction. The personnel also need to have adequate information about the biological, mental, and social needs of patients [1]. Patients’ satisfaction is a key factor of the quality of health cares and one of the predictors in measuring health outcomes and the quality of cares in a health center [2].
Patients’ satisfaction is the outcome of a complicated set of factors and, achieving it entails coordination in different aspects of services such as nursing, medicinal, and backup services. Organizational wards need to function in a coordinated manner and respect patients’ rights in all aspects to ensure a proper environment to increase satisfaction in patients [3]. The satisfaction level is defined as the difference between what is expected and what is realized [4]. Patients tend to accept a treatment program more easily when their satisfaction is at a desirable level [5]. In fact, the higher satisfaction in patients, the faster mental and physical recovery in them. On the other hand, dissatisfaction increases irritability and anxiety in patients, which prolongs recovery and hospitalization. Consequently, medication cost increases, and more beds remain occupied [6].
The patient’s satisfaction level is measured based on several factors that are mostly reported by the patient. Based on satisfaction level, researchers can introduce new policies and plans and improve patients' satisfaction level and achieve better outcomes [7]. These factors cover all services by health personnel, including nurses, and represent the attitude of patients about general appearance, cleanliness, peace, and waiting time [2]. Patients’ satisfaction is affected by mental perception, patients’ awareness of their rights, personnel’s communicational abilities to establish a mental relationship with patients, and several other factors such as cultural, social, economic, and personality background. In addition, demographical factors such as age, gender, and education level can affect the satisfaction level [8]. Lee et al. in Canada showed that there is a significant relationship between age and education and satisfaction level in patients; so that satisfaction level in educated patients was less than that in patients with lower education level [9].
Studies have shown that nurses with higher professional commitment and communicational skills achieve a higher level of patient satisfaction. In addition, where nurses are given more independence, have a stronger role in decision-making, and cooperating with other health personnel, they achieve a higher level of patient satisfaction [10, 11]. Besides, quality and safety of care and patients’ satisfaction with the hospital environment require management’s support for nursing care, good nurse-physician relationship, nurses’ participation in decision-making, and priority of quality care from the nurses’ viewpoint [12]. Patient satisfaction measurement is a complicated and multifaceted phenomenon, including, among many, relationships with medical personnel, physical environment, and specification of health care organization [13].
The nursing profession is one of the highly stressful jobs as the nurse is in charge of controlling and supervising patients and constantly exposed to several stressors [14]. Since nurses have the main role in providing health care in hospitals, equipment and environmental safety have a direct effect on the quality of care and patients’ satisfaction [15, 16].
COVID-19 is a newly emerging viral respiratory disease with a rapid spread worldwide, which has affected the quality of nursing care [17]. The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. Now it has spread all over the world [18]. It is a serious concern for health care personnel including nurses [19–20]. Studies have shown that the disease has affected nurses’ mental and spiritual conditions in nurses which can have a negative effect on the quality of service [21, 22].
Given that COVID-19 is an unknown and highly contagious disease and has inflicted a large number of individuals, it can affect nursing care, and the high bed-occupancy rate can cause a heavy financial pressure on the health care system. During the COVID-19 pandemic, nurses are faced with a heavier workload. Taking into account the importance of nursing cares in terms of the patients’ outcomes, having a deeper knowledge about patient’s problems, and taking measure to improve their satisfaction; and the paucity of studies on this field, the present study aimed to determine the patients’ satisfaction and its related factors in patients with COVID-19. Our research questions were:
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What is the patient's satisfaction level of patients with COVID-19 from nursing care?
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What factors do affect the patient's satisfaction in patients with COVID-19?