Original Article: Clinical Endoscopy
Patient satisfaction scores for endoscopic procedures: impact of a survey-collection method

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gie.2006.11.032Get rights and content

Background

Many endoscopy units administer patient satisfaction surveys. We hypothesized that the survey collection method would affect satisfaction scores.

Objective

To compare satisfaction scores obtained by using on-site (OS) surveys versus mail-back (MB) surveys.

Design

Quasi-randomization based on alternating weeks.

Setting

Teaching hospital.

Patients

Patients undergoing elective routine outpatient colonoscopy or upper endoscopy.

Interventions

Every patient was given an 11-question survey that asked about the patient's satisfaction with the nurses and the physician, wait times, the bowel-preparation process, patient education, procedural comfort, and sedation. Survey collection methods alternated weekly between an OS versus an MB method.

Main Outcome Measurements

Satisfaction scores on a Likert scale ranged from 1 (worst) to 7 (best).

Results

A total of 1698 subjects were included. The response rate was higher for the OS group (95%) than the MB group (62%). OS scores were significantly higher than MB scores for 5 of 11 questions, which concerned nurse satisfaction, physician satisfaction, bowel-preparation comfort, postprocedure education, and overall satisfaction (Bonferroni adjusted P < .05 for all). Younger patients gave lower scores than older patients for all questions, whereas women gave significantly lower scores than men for bowel-preparation satisfaction.

Limitations

Lack of true randomization and formal validation of the satisfaction survey.

Conclusions

Survey collection methods may bias not only response rates but also satisfaction scores. OS survey collection methods tend to result in higher satisfaction scores than MB methods. This bias should be noted when comparing scores among studies that used different survey collection methods.

Section snippets

Patients and methods

This study protocol was approved by the institutional review board of Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, Washington.

Subject recruitment

A total of 1698 patients underwent eligible procedures. A total of 1336 patients returned surveys, including 645 men and 691 women, with an overall mean age of 60.2 years. There were 816 patients in the OS group versus 520 in the MB group, because the return rate was significantly higher for the OS (95%) than for the MB group (62%) (P < .001). The study cohort included 955 colonoscopies and 381 upper endoscopies. There were 652 patients aged <60 years and 684 aged 60+ years.

Comparison by survey collection method

In general, mean and

Discussion

Endoscopy units often use surveys to assess patient satisfaction with endoscopic procedures.1, 2 Dissatisfied patients are more likely to be noncompliant,3, 4 transfer their care to other providers,5, 6 and engage in litigation.7 Satisfaction surveys serve as an important means of quality control for the endoscopy unit as a whole, as well as for individual health care providers. Patterns of low satisfaction scores may identify specific aspects of the procedure that need improvement, such as

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank William Spaulding and Nicoline Lomah for their invaluable technical assistance, as well as Drs John Brandabur, James Bredfeldt, Fred Drennan, and Geoffrey Jiranek for their clinical advice and input.

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