Patient factors influencing outpatient satisfaction in patients presenting with shoulder pain.

Background: Patient-based evaluation of health care has been gaining attention in the past 2 decades. The purpose of this study was to evaluate patient satisfaction in a shoulder outpatient clinic and determine which factors impact satisfaction levels.

Methods: Fifty-nine outpatients with shoulder complaints from December 2017 to January 2018 were included. Patient satisfaction was measured using the Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey, and 2 methods of calculation were implemented: top-box and average scores. The impacts of age, gender, diagnosis, duration with the provider, Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System score, Pain Catastrophizing Scale score, pain visual analog scale (VAS) score, and function VAS score on patient satisfaction were analyzed. Patients were divided into more satisfied and less satisfied groups, and logistic regression analysis was performed to determine which factors affect patient satisfaction.

Results: The median total average and top-box scores were 95.2% and 90%, respectively. Similarly, in the analysis of all variables, average scores were always higher than top-box scores. The function VAS score and Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System score significantly influenced satisfaction. When patients were divided into more satisfied and less satisfied groups, the odds of having a less satisfied score among patients with a function VAS score of less than 5 was 5.5 times that of patients with a score of 5 or greater (odds ratio of 5.06 [95% confidence interval, 1.55-16.46] with P = .01 for univariate and adjusted odds ratio of 5.53 [95% confidence interval, 1.14-26.76] with P = .03 for multivariate).

Conclusion: Despite being calculated from the same question set, using the average-score method for the Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey generally yields higher scores than the top-box method. Among patients with shoulder pathology, function of the shoulder, as measured on a VAS, was the most significant factor influencing patient satisfaction in the outpatient setting.