The Importance of Pre-discharge Self-care Trainings for Patients: Evaluation of Patients’ Satisfaction about Training Programs Provided in Mashhad Hospitals

Background: One of the main tasks of the hospital medical staff is training of patients and their family about the disease, essential tips on how to use drugs and how to prevent recurrence and chronicity of the disease. The objective of this study was to assess patients’ satisfaction about the educational programs provided by nurses and physicians in hospitals of Mashhad.
Methods: This was a descriptive analytical study which was conducted in five general hospitals in Mashhad during 2011 o 2012. Subjects were randomly selected from hospitalized patients in internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, cardiology and emergency departments. Data were collected with a researcher-made questionnaire that includes demographic features of patients and questions about patients’ satisfaction with the trainings received during hospital stay and also a standardized patient satisfaction questionnaire (PSQ-18).
Results: In this study, 62.2% of patients were women and mean age of all patients was 42.3 ± 16.5. The highest level of satisfaction with the trainings was related to diagnosis (68.6%) and lowest rate of satisfaction with trainings was about the impact of illness on family members (8.1%). Statistical analysis showed an inverse significant relationship between age and degree of satisfaction (P = 0.007). The relationship between patients’ educational level and degree of satisfaction was also inversely significant (P = 0.009). In addition, there was a direct significant correlation between the number of admissions and degree of satisfaction (P = 0.007). The highest level of satisfaction (very high and high) of trainings was found from patients hospitalized in the cardiology (78.4%) and obstetrics and gynecology (57.5%) departments and the lowest level of satisfaction was found from the department of internal medicine (9.2%).
Conclusion: The findings of this study ascertain the need for improving the trainings provided to patients. Hence, the hospital authorities with the help of experts in education should provide systematic and complete educational programs for patients to increase patients’ satisfaction and reduce medical costs by reducing the length of hospital stay and preventing frequent hospital admissions.