A STUDY OF PATIENT SATISFACTION AND ADHERENCE TO PREVENTIVE CARE PRACTICE GUIDELINES

PURPOSE: Patient satisfaction ratings are being used to judge physicia ns' quality of care and to determine physician reimbursement. We there fore studied the association between patient satisfaction and the qual ity of medical care received by patients in physicians' offices. PATIE NTS AND METHODS: Patient satisfaction was measured in a survey of pati ents cared for by 48 primary care physicians in a health maintenance o rganization in Southern California. Evidence that patients were offere d or received preventive care services was determined by patient surve y and medical record abstraction, respectively. The medical records of 3,249 randomly selected elderly patients (65 to 75 years old] were st udied. Of these patients, 2,799 completed a patient satisfaction and p reventive care services survey (response rate 86.1%), 2,654 completed a patient satisfaction survey (response rate 81.7%), and 2,258 complet ed a quality of-life survey (response rate 69.5%). RESULTS: Patients w ere generally satisfied with their physicians' care (median satisfacti on score 4.2; scale 1 to 5, 5 being most satisfied]. Patients who rece ived or were offered mammography, clinical breast examination, influen za vaccine, pneumococcal vaccine, tetanus vaccine, exercise counseling , and smoking cessation counseling were more satisfied with their medi cal care than those patients who did not (P <0.001 for all tests). Aft er controlling for the physician who was providing the medical care, t here was still a statistically significant relationship between these factors and patient satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: We found a significant association between patient satisfaction and the performance of some b ut not all preventive care services. However, we cannot be certain whe ther there is a relationship between patient satisfaction and quality of patient care.