PATIENT PERSPECTIVES ON HEALTHCARE QUALITY: A STUDY OF TWO SECONDARY HEALTH FACILITIES IN ENUGU STATE, NIGERIA

Aim; To Assess patients’ perception of the quality of care given in two Secondary Health Care facilities in Udi and Enugu South Local Government Areas, Enugu State Nigeria. Method; A cross-sectional study was used to study the perception of the quality of care given to 144 patients attending and hospitalized in two secondary health care facilities in Enugu State. The facilities were Uwani General Hospital, Enugu South LGA (Urban facility) and Udi General Hospital Udi LGA (Rural facility). A structured questionnaire was used to obtain their responses. The questionnaires contained questions on the demographic characteristics (Table one) and their perception on the quality of care given (Table two). The questionnaires were analysed using SPSS version 25 and the results were presented in the form of tables. Results; The overall perception was above average (3.15±0.78); many had the perception that the quality of care was good (76.4%) The highest ranked factor which stated that HCWs had time to sit and talk to the patients had a score of (3.70±0.60). Conclusion; A great proportion of patients 76.4% had the perception that the quality of care was good mainly because the HCWs had time to sit down with them and talk over their problems. This is considered a very good outcome of our study mainly because prior to this study the quality of health care provided in secondary Health Care facilities was considered as very poor in Enugu State. The result was that patients were not patronizing these secondary facilities thereby overloading the Tertiary Health Facilities in the state with cases which could have been conveniently handled at the secondary level