Is the length of stay in hospital correlated with patient satisfaction?

Objective: To investigate the correlation between length of stay (LOS) and patient satisfaction on the level of hospital wards. The underlying hypothesis is that good quality of care leads both to shorter LOS and to patients that are more satisfied.

Design: We used standardized LOS and standardized patient satisfaction data from seven specialisms: internal medicine, cardiology, pulmonology, neurology, general surgery, orthopaedic surgery and obstetrics and gynaecology in the period 2003-2010. All LOS data were derived from the National Medical Registration and patient satisfaction scores were measured by a questionnaire covering six aspects of care. The LOS data were standardized for the year of discharge, age, primary diagnosis and procedure. Patient satisfaction data were standardized for the year, age, education and health status.

Setting: One hundred and eighty-eight Dutch hospital wards.

Participants: The patient satisfaction data were gathered by questionnaires returned by 102 815 patients.

Intervention: None.

Main Outcome Measure: Pearson correlations and two-tailed significance. between standardized mean LOS and standardized mean patient satisfaction score.

Results: We found no correlation between LOS and patient satisfaction in six out of seven specialties. We only found significantly higher patient satisfaction scores in pulmonology for some specific items on hospitals wards with a shorter LOS. These items concerned the reception on the ward, the information provided by nurses on admission, the expertise of the nursing staff, the way information was transferred from one person to another and respect for patients' privacy such as in conversations, and during physical examinations.

Conclusions: We found no evidence that hospital wards with a relatively short mean LOS had higher, or lower, patient satisfaction than hospital wards with a relatively long LOS, with the exception of pulmonology.