Customer Satisfaction as a Quality Factor in Geriatric Rehabilitation

Customer satisfaction is relevant for geriatric rehabilitation, besides objective outcomes. We aimed at measuring customer satisfaction at discharge from our rehabilitative wards, and at singling out its predictive factors. We studied 506 elderly patients, aged 78 8 years. Satisfaction at discharge scored high in all 4-levels graded items of a questionnaire surveying perception of patient improvement, quality of rehabilitative treatment, physicians' and nurses' intervention, personal care, lodging quality, goodness of information got. Mean overall rating (scoring 0 to 10) of the rehabilitative stay was 9.2 2.1, median and mode were 10. Rating correlated with: relative functional gain (r = 0.23, p < .000), absolute Barthel Index total score at discharge (r = 0.18, p < .000), net gain in Barthel Index total score at discharge (r = 0.1, p = 0.021), and improvement in CIRS Severity Index (r = 0.9, p = 0.043). Relative functional gain was the only variable predictive of rating that was retained by stepwise multiple regressions (p < .000).