Ethnicity and satisfaction with primary health care providers among adults age 55 years and older

Abstract

Today's competitive health care market and consumers' increasing demands for quality care have led providers to focus on meeting the needs of the community they serve. One strategy for improved quality of care is to identify patients' concerns, needs, and perceptions of treatment. Satisfaction surveys are used by health care providers to obtain this important information. Efforts can then be directed at increasing satisfaction that can be a factor related to quality of care. Satisfaction with health care has been associated with increased patient adherence to health care regimens and improved health outcomes (Fitzpatrick, 1990). The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a difference in elders' satisfaction with their primary health care providers according to ethnicity.

A non-randomized convenience sample of eighty-three older adult subjects was obtained from four seniors nutritional aid program sites located in Central Florida. The 10-item American Board of Internal Medicine Patient Satisfaction Survey was used to measure satisfaction with their health care providers. Characteristics of the respondents and their primary health care providers were analyzed using descriptive statistics. A two-tailed t-test was used to analyze the difference in satisfaction with their health care provider between African American and Caucasian subjects.

The results demonstrated overall satisfaction in both groups with their health care providers with a mean score of 20.89 (1 0=excellent and 50=poor) for the sample. There was no significant difference in satisfaction related to patients' ethnicity, t = .27, p> .05. Directions for further study include using larger samples from varied geographic locations, and investigation of satisfaction with primary health care providers among ethnic groups.

Notes

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Graduation Date

1996

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Browne-Krimsley, Valerie

Degree

Master of Science (M.S.)

College

College of Health and Public Affairs

Department

Nursing

Format

Print

Pages

79 p.

Language

English

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

Identifier

DP0022647

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Health and Public Affairs; Health and Public Affairs -- Dissertations, Academic

Accessibility Status

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