A Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire as a Teaching and Comparative Audit Tool

This paper explores the development and use of a Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire which was chosen by members of the South Australian Quality Assurance Research Officers' Association (SAQAROA) as a method of learning how to undertake quality assurance. Overall this process was rated as being successful by the members. Use of the Questionnaire revealed high overall satisfaction with services being provided. However, for most questions one or more hospitals returned comparatively high dissatisfaction rates, the significance of which was not appreciated until comparative data became available.