Level of patients' satisfaction toward national health insurance in Istanbul City (Turkey)

A cross sectional study was carried out in July-October 2011 in Istanbul city, Turkey to determine the level of patients' satisfaction and factors influencing satisfaction toward newly reformed national health insurance. A total of 345 heads of houshold have been selected by using simple random sampling selection method. Data was collected via household's structured questionnaire and Patients' Satisfaction Questionnaire version II. The response rate was (89%) and data was analyzed by using SPSS version 16.0. Age of respondents was around 20 to 70 years old with the mean age of 41.97 ± 13.87 years. Majority of clients' are educated till tertiary education (54.5%) and most of them are currently employed (87.2%). Among the respondents, more than half were satisfied toward national health insurance (53.3%). Respondents were satisfied with domains of access to care (66.7%); availability of resources (52.2%); technical quality (56.5%); overall satisfaction (55.9%); continuity of care (68.7%) and humaneness (53.6%). In bivariate chi-square analysis, result of this study indicated that there were eight factors significantly associated with level of satisfaction i.e. age, gender, marital status, education, occupation, self perceived health status, area of residency and type of household's plan. Further analysis, by using multiple logistic regression showed that the eight factors also significant predictors to the level of satisfaction. Higher patients' satisfaction was associated with improved access to care and continuity of care. However, light must be shed on availability of resources, technical quality and humaneness to improve overall patients' satisfaction.