Abstract
Purpose :
Patient satisfaction is an increasingly important component of health care quality. Understanding disparities in patient satisfaction is important to develop future interventions to address these disparities. Our study aims to elucidate the patient factors associated with higher satisfaction for ophthalmologic care in an outpatient setting.
Methods :
A cross-sectional study of outpatient satisfaction survey data from Ophthalmology patient encounters from 2017-2020 was performed and approved by the Mass General Brigham Institutional Review Board. Categorical and numerical data on patient satisfaction were collected by phone or email after in-person outpatient encounters. Patient variables collected included age, gender, primary language, race, and race. Group comparisons were performed with Kruskal-Wallis, Pearson, and Tukey tests as appropriate, and a multivariable mixed-effect model was constructed to adjust for repeat responder data and to control for confounding factors.
Results :
Of 121,436 distinct outpatient visits and surveys, 92,059 (75.8%) had complete survey data. Patient factors associated with higher satisfaction included older age (p = 0.043, 95% CI = 0.037-0.049), higher income (p = 0.023, 95% CI = 0.017-0.029), English vs. non-English speaker (p < 0.001), and White race vs. other races (p < 0.001). There was no significant difference by gender (p = 0.969). Encounters at our suburban practice locations had higher patient satisfaction than at our urban locations (p < 0.001). The multivariable mixed-effect model demonstrated significant differences by race, age, female vs. male gender, English vs. non-English speaking, and income, with p ≤ 0.001 for all variables.
Conclusions :
Our study demonstrates significant differences in satisfaction ratings based on patient factors, with older, wealthier, male, White, English-speaking patients demonstrating higher satisfaction. These may reflect barriers to healthcare for traditionally medically-underserved populations with socioeconomic, healthcare access-related, and language barriers. Further studies are necessary to explore the provider and system-wide factors that may underlie these disparities in patient satisfaction, which may provide the basis for creating a more equitable healthcare system in the future.
This abstract was presented at the 2023 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans, LA, April 23-27, 2023.