ELDERLY PATIENTS WITH HEART-FAILURE - A STUDY OF SATISFACTION WITH CARE AND QUALITY-OF-LIFE

Objective. To assess the level of patient satisfaction with care, pati ent quality of life, the relationship between these measures and hospi tal readmission rates, and patient outcomes. Methodology. A prospectiv e cohort study was conducted of all patients aged 60 years and over ad mitted to the John Hunter and Mater Hospitals, in the Hunter Area, in whom congestive heart failure contributed to the need for hospital adm ission. Patients recruited into the main study were then asked to comp lete a questionnaire on discharge from hospital. Patients were asked t o complete the satisfaction questionnaire on discharge because this wo uld reflect the patients' satisfaction with the overall stay. To provi de a baseline quality-of-life score, patients were asked to complete a questionnaire 2 weeks after discharge.Findings. Overall scores on the satisfaction questionnaire were high, indicating that the patients we re very satisfied with their care. There were six questions in which 1 7-35% of patients indicated some degree of dissatisfaction, four relat ed to patient knowledge. No difference in satisfaction was found betwe en patients who had or did not have a readmission. Quality-of-life res ults showed that patients who had a readmission had a significantly lo wer quality-of-life score at 12 month follow-up (P = 0.007) than those without a readmission. Conclusion. This finding has supported our hyp othesis that a higher level of quality of life would be related to few er readmissions.