Patient satisfaction in public hospitals: The case of Diyarbakır Gazi Yaşargil Education and Research Hospital

The development of technology, rapid access to information, the demand of the society to increase the living standards and the change in consumer habits have made the service sector important. Due to the unique characteristics of the service sector, it causes the service to be offered in a way that is not easy compared to the sectors that produce goods. Since the subject of health services is human health and health services have unique characteristics, health services have a separate place in the service sector. Both public hospitals and private hospitals have to maintain their income-expenditure balance. This necessity causes health institutions to try to address more patients and diversify the services they offer. For this reason, health institutions, like other businesses, have to care about patient satisfaction, as they are in competition. This research; This study was conducted to measure the satisfaction levels of inpatients in Diyarbakır Gazi Yaşargil Training and Research Hospital and to determine whether there are statistically significant differences between these satisfaction levels and the participants' gender, age, length of stay, and educational status. The research is a descriptive and cross-sectional research that was carried out with the questionnaire application technique, which is one of the quantitative research techniques. The research population consists of 2660 patients who were hospitalized in the main building of Diyarbakır Gazi Yaşargil Training and Research Hospital in June 2022 (excluding outpatients, intensive care units, emergency, palliative services and psychiatry services) and discharged after treatment. The sample group is 390 patients selected by simple random sampling method. The data were collected with the Inpatient Satisfaction Scale published by the Ministry of Health, Quality and Efficiency Department. In the analysis of the data, percentage and frequency statistics were used to determine the descriptive features, average statistics were used in the measurement of patient satisfaction, in the comparison of the quantitative data in the case of two groups, in the comparison of the normally distributed parameters, the independent sample t-test was used, in the comparison of the quantitative data, in the case of more than two groups, in the comparison of the normally distributed parameters, one-way anova tests were used. In the study, the satisfaction levels of the patients who were hospitalized in Diyarbakır Gazi Yaşargil Training and Research Hospital were measured. It was concluded that there were no statistically significant differences between patient satisfaction levels and the gender of the participants, and there were statistically significant differences between patient satisfaction levels and age, length of hospitalization, and educational status. health managers; Making adjustments in hospital service delivery in line with patient expectations according to the variables of gender, age, length of stay, and educational status will help to increase the quality of the service provided and thus to increase patient satisfaction levels.