Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: In our country, some health institutions are allowed to constitute additional service buildings/centers in order to increase the accessibility to outpatient services and decrease the crowdiness in hospitals. We aimed to investigate the satisfaction of the patients evaluated in our endocrinology and metabolism diseases center-ENDOOTEM (Endocrinology-Nuclear Medicine-Diabetes-Obesity-Osteoporosis-Thyroid Diagnosis and TreatmentCenter)- which serves as a part of our university hospital since 2007.

Methods: Patients who were examined in our center between September 2018-January 2019 were asked to participate in satisfaction survey. ‘Satisfaction surveys application guide’ published by Ministry of Health of our country, satisfaction survey recommended by ‘American Association of Family Physicians-AAFP’ and PQ8-18 survey developed in 1994 were modified to create our own satisfaction survey.

Results: 1387(58.6%) female and 979 (41.4%) male patients completed the questionnaire. The question of ‘Are you satisfied with our center in general?’ was answered as yes by 1374 (58.1%), partially by 625 (26.6%) and no by 353 (14.9%) patients. There were 1526 (64.5%) patients who thought that the doctor spent enough time for his/her illness and 368 (15.6%) patients who thought he/she partially spent enough time. Whether the doctor was polite and respectful was answered as yes by 1800 (76.7%), partially by 335 (14.3%) and no by 213 (9.1%) patients. There were 1930 (82.0%) patients who were completely or partially pleased with the attitude of the staff and 1988 (84.5%) patients who stated that his/her personal privacy was taken care of. Waiting rooms were not enough according to 1406 (59.4%) and not comfortable according to 1140 (48.2%) patients. The main problems were defined as difficulty of making appointment by 990 (41.8%), waiting for a long time for evaluation of results by 1056 (44.6%), waiting for a long time for examination dates by 734 (31.0%), difficulty in transportation and car parking by 573 (24.2%) and not being able to make appointment for the same doctor by 472 (19.9%) patients. 1695 (72.2%) patients declared that they wanted to continue the follow-up in our center.

Conclusion: Majority of patients were satisfied with the services, the physicians and the staff working in our center. However, the difficulty in making appointments and physical conditions seem to be the most important problems. These results suggest that specialized centers may increase the quality of health services and the number of such centers should be increased. Nevertheless, it is important to provide the proper physical conditions before opening a specialized health center.