Anylsis of questionnaire on patients views

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Report on Patients’ views

Introduction:

In this report the focus will be to investigate the waiting time the patient has to wait before he or she sees the dentist or the dental hygienist. In addition the research undertaken will explore the quality of the services provided and how it can be improved. The questionnaire is based on twelve questions which are related to the waiting time the patient has to wait and the services provided in the waiting room. The objective of conducting this research is to improve the services and increase the patient’s satisfaction.

Methodology:

The questionnaire was handed to a random sample of 60 patients to be filled while their waiting to see the dentist. Purposive sampling method was used in the research where the results can not be used to generalise the whole population because they have not been selected randomly. The patients of this dentist were selected as the case to be explored, that is because they are the only group of our interest. However the valuable information they provide can not necessarily represent the population.  The focus was on this sub-group of customers who attend specifically to this football club. The customers were handed a questionnaire asking them about their opinions on the service provided and the waiting time they had to wait before they see the dentist. The patients were randomly selected and they all had an equal chance of being asked to fill the questionnaire.  The questionnaire was handed to each patient as they checked in for their appointment at reception. They were asked to complete the questionnaire and return by posting it in the box provided at the reception desk. They were ensured that the questionnaire is anonymous and confidential, in order to gain their trust and increase the response rate.

The response rate was very high. The questionnaire was distributed to 60 patients, out of these 60 patients 58 participated and returned the questionnaire back in the box.

The table below gives the percentage of participation of the patients.

Looking at the table only 3.333% of the patients who were handed the questionnaire did not return it back to the box. However the percentage of participation is very high and the 96.666% of the patients who retuned back their questionnaire is a good response rate to investigate patients’ views on the waiting time to see the dentist or the dental hygienist.

Analysis Section:

Does the practice have a problem with lengthy waiting times?

   

From the table we can see that there is no a problem with lengthy waiting. Out of the 58 patients who filled the questionnaire, 37 of them are seen early or on time after booking an appointment time to see the dentist/dental hygienist. This shows that 64.9% of the patients who answered this question do not have a problem with lengthy waiting. However, for the 17 patients who waited up to 10 minutes or more this could be seen as sign of concern, as they represent 29.9% of the patients who participated on filling this question. This concern needs to be taken in consideration and should be minimised in the future, as this might have impact on decreasing patient’s satisfaction.                  

The age of patients at the practice

         

Do most patients get a seat in the waiting room and are these seats considered to be comfortable?

The results in the above table show that most of the patients get a seat in the waiting room. The number of patients who get a seat for all of the time or some of the time is 49 patients. They represent 86% of the patients who answered this question. Only 10.3% of the patients said they do not get a seat in the waiting room. The figure is not significant, but it causes alert because patients should find a seat to sit while their waiting, otherwise their satisfaction is going to be at risk.

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From the table we can see that 61.4% of the patients who find a seat said that the seat are comfortable, however 19.3% of these patients said that the seats are not comfortable. On the other hand 14% of the patients did not answer  the question as it is not applicable to them, that is because they don’t get a seat when they go to the practice, so  they can not tell whether the seats are comfortable or not.

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