CHATTING BEHAVIOR AND PATIENT SATISFACTION: METHODS
This was a cross-sectional, descriptive study of adult outpatients who receive care at the family medicine clinic of an urban, academic health cen ter. A convenience sample of patients were given a self-administered exit survey, which included five items from the Patient Visit Rating Questionnaire (VRQ), in addition to items regarding specific chatting content areas and self-reported demographic information.
Study Population
Participants were adult patients, ages 18 and older who completed an outpatient visit with a medical provider at a family medicine center that serves as the primary training site for a family medicine residency program. Patient service representatives (PSR) identified and invited alternate patients who presented for checkout to participate in an exit survey. Patients were excluded from the study if they were non-English speaking, had severe memory or impaired orientation as determined by the PSR, or refused to participate. The study was conducted during a four-week period in the late fall of 2001 and was reviewed and approved by the Human Subjects Committee of the University of Kansas Medical Center prior to its initiation. buy antibiotics canada
Survey Instrument
A 22-item, self-administered, anonymous survey was given to patients at the time of check-out from their office visit. Five items that were specific to patient satisfaction with the provider were selected from the VRQ, which is a widely used and valid survey instrument with benchmarked values for degrees of satisfaction across multiple sites of care. Twelve additional items with dichotomous responses were included to report chatting behavior and the topical areas of chatting behavior, if any, from the recently concluded visit. One open-ended question asked for additional chatting topics that were brought up. The final section of the survey requested information on patient characteristics, such as sex, age, race/ethnicity, type of health insurance, and self-reported health status.
Data Analysis
Returned surveys that were only partially completed by subjects were included in the data set, and individual items not completed were excluded from analysis. Descriptive statistics for responses to chatting behavior questions and patient characteristics were calculated. Due to the exploratory nature of the study, a power analysis was not performed. The sample population was dichotomized into two groups—those that reported chatting during the encounter and those that did not. Chi-square analyses were conducted to compare patient sociodemographic characteristics between the chatting and nonchatting group, and Fisher’s Exact Test was used where cell sizes were less than five. A total patient satisfaction score was determined by the summation of the five individual items from the VRQ, and a t test was performed to compare overall satisfaction between the two groups. Due to high reported patient satisfaction in the sample, there was skew-ness to the VRQ responses, and item responses were subsequently collapsed into two categories; “poor,” “fair,” “good,” and “very good” responses were regrouped as “less satisfied,” and “excellent” responses were regrouped as “more satisfied.” A Chi-square test was conducted to compare patient satisfaction between chatting and nonchatting groups. All analyses were performed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 10.0 software package (SPSS, Chicago, IL). online pharmacy without a prescription
