Abstract
Purpose :
Healthcare satisfaction is an important indicator in quality of healthcare
evaluations. Whereas, in developed nations, healthcare satisfaction is generally high
as the result of state of the art technology applications and abundant resources, little is
known on the subject in developing nations especially as it relates to eye care. This
was an exploratory study to assess the healthcare satisfaction of parents of visually
compromised children from a developing country.
Methods :
Patients were recruited from a general ophthalmology clinic – Santa
Casa of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Children with visual disabilities underwent a complete
eye examination including measurement of best-corrected visual acuity (VA),
biomicroscopy, and ophthalmoscopy. Their respective parents were asked to answer
the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ (PedsQL™) healthcare satisfaction generic
module – parents (version 3.0) to assess parents’ satisfaction with current treatment.
Results :
The study sample comprised 32 children with a mean VA of 0.6; 17 had
strabismus, 10 congenital cataracts, 2 nystagmus, 2 congenital glaucoma, and 1
albinism; mean age was 8.0 ± 2.6 years. The mean score of PedsQL parental
satisfaction with the ophthalmology services was 64.6 ± 19.2. A positive correlation
was observed between the score and better visual acuity (P = 0.031).
Conclusions :
The level of parental satisfaction with the ophthalmology clinic was
good despite limitations related to healthcare delivery in developing countries.
The level of satisfaction was higher especially for parents whose children
achieved better VA.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.