Patient Satisfaction with Maternal and Child Health Services among Mothers Attending the Maternal and Child Health Training Institute in Dhaka, Bangladesh

This cross sectional study was conducted in order to describe patient satisfaction with maternal and child health services among mothers attending at Maternal and Child Health Training Institute in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The study population were women patients (over fifteen years old) who came to the out patient department for maternal and child care services. A total of 175 patients were interviewed during the period of 8 January to 18 January 2007. A structured questionnaire dealing with socio-demographic characteristics, accessibility of the hospital, available service from the hospital, expectation of services, satisfaction with the services and patients’ suggestion were used as data collection instruments. Results were presented in frequency and percentage, and chisquare test was applied to show the association between independent and dependent variables. The results demonstrated that most of the respondents had a monthly family income of less than three thousand taka up to five thousand taka only, most belonged to the age group of twenty to twenty four years, and had primary or secondary education level. The majority of the respondents were housewives having two children, who took less than thirty minutes to reach the service center and spent more than fifteen taka for transportation. The result of the study revealed that the 76.6% of the respondents were highly satisfied with the provider’s support and 57.8% were highly satisfied with the facilities of the service centers. The findings also showed that there was a significant relationship between satisfaction and good facilities of the services (pvalue <0.05). No statistically significant associations were found for patients’ age, education, income, occupation, service expectation and provider’s support. This study was hospital based and showed that the majority of the mothers were satisfied in terms of provider’s support and facilities, irrespective of their expectations. However, being a quantitative study over a short period, the study may not reflect all dimensions of the situation. Further exit interviews and qualitative study might be needed to explore actual levels of satisfaction more intensely.