Patient satisfaction among people living with HIV/AIDS visiting antiretroviral therapy center with a hospital administration perspective

HIV infection continues to pose a significant public health challenge. Due to limited access to HIV prevention and treatment services, over 6800 individuals are newly infected with HIV and more than 5700 people die from AIDS each day around the world. The number of people living with HIV/AIDS is on the rise, attributed to the longer incubation periods and the increasing number of new infections, coupled with improved survival rates in a growing population. Patient satisfaction has emerged as an important concept of healthcare delivery. The higher patient satisfaction levels associated to behavioral change and improved health outcomes, as observed in many HIV treatment quality improvement programs. Various patient-oriented service factors in hospital administration includes access and availability (such as convenience, physical accessibility, and confidentiality), service structure (including safety and characteristics of the environment, session, and test provider), and both technical and medical aspects of the testing process (like blood collection, record maintenance, informed consent, wait times, and result communication). In addition, the emotional and socio-psychological dimensions of the interaction include decision-making support, personalized risk information, appropriate emotional support, and service referrals. Understanding of the patient satisfaction level not only helps the service providers to strengthen the communication skills required to deal with patients but also leads to the evaluation of the weaknesses of HIV prevention and care programs from patient’s perspective, adding newer dimensions in the quality improvement processes. Further, it also creates a baseline data to measure and compare any deviation in patient satisfaction level from future perspective.