Loading...
Patient satisfaction surveys are used routinely to evaluate quality of care, but evidence suggests that these surveys reflect factors other than those they are designed to evaluate. Outpatients at a single academic spine center were asked to complete both a routine patient satisfaction survey and a standard questionnaire designed to measure psychological distress in orthopedic patients. Researchers correlated the results of the two surveys among 103 patients seen during a 2-year period who completed both questionnaires during the same visit.
Overall satisfaction with clinical encounters varied inversely with simultaneously measured psychological distress, from a mean satisfaction score of 90 (on a 100-point scale) among patients classified a…