Assessment of satisfaction and utilization of health-care services by NHIS , Kano Nigeria

What is it about?

The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) aims at universal health coverage through access to high quality health-care to all enrolees. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to incorporate feedbacks from periodic patient-surveys into service improvement plans. This study therefore, assessed satisfaction and utilization of health-care services by enrolees of a Nigerian tertiary hospital. This was a crosssectional study of 399 respondents randomly selected from enrolees attending the NHIS-clinic of Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano. Using an intervieweradministered questionnaire, it assessed their sociodemographics, medical history, number of and reason for clinic visits, satisfaction with- access to care, patient-provider relationships and hospital facilities/environment. Respondents’ mean age was 38.3 ± 9.2 years and females accounted for 55.9% of respondents. Most respondents (60.4%, 69.8%, 96.0%) were satisfied with the ease of accessing care, waiting-time and hospital facilities/environment respectively. Most respondents (94.8%, 81.1%, 73.3%, 74.5%, 83.1%, 91.1%) were satisfied with their relationship with physicians, nurses, laboratory staff, ] pharmacists, record officers and other hospital-staff respectively. Overall, 80.5% of respondents were satisfied with the hospital’s services. All respondents had visited the clinic at least once in the preceding 12-weeks. Although 49.1% visited for non-communicable diseases, more respondents who were for antenatal-care (followed by non-communicable and communicable diseases) had had ≥ 2 clinic visits (c2 =15.5%, df=2, P=0.0001).

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Why is it important?

This study observed a high utilization of and overall satisfaction with the hospital’s services;

Perspectives