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Age and smoking status linked with patient satisfaction scores after spinal care
ORLANDO, Fla. — Young patients, active smokers and patients with less formal education reported less satisfaction after spinal care, according to data presented here.
Jesse E. Bible, MD, presented the findings which analyzed the patient satisfaction of 200 patients, 3 weeks after being treated at one of 11 spinal clinics. The patient satisfaction surveys consisted of 25 questions and were administered by phone, he said.
“Patient characteristics associated with lower scores across all three main outcomes of interest were younger age, less formal education, smoking, and as well as male patients, who had lower overall patient satisfaction,” Bible said during his presentation at the Cervical Spine Research Society Annual Meeting.
In addition, he noted that patients with work injuries had lower patient satisfaction than patients without work injuries. Patients involved in workers’ compensation claims were typically less satisfied with their providers or overall experiences, Bible said.
Factors such as working status, mental health or narcotic use were not found to have an influence on patient satisfaction outcomes, Bible said.
“This study was the first to assess spine patients, and found that patients who were younger, had less formal education, and active smokers had lower satisfaction scores, as well as work comp patients had lower scores,” he said. “Again, this information becomes important to providers as they help guide individual patient interactions, and scoring agencies allow them to account for potentially sampling bias.”
Reference:
Bible JE. Paper #47. Presented at: Cervical Spine Research Society Annual Meeting; Dec. 4-6, 2014; Orlando, Fla.
Disclosure: Bible has no relevant financial disclosures.