Effect of waiting time on patients’ satisfaction in outpatient: An empirical investigation

Abstract

Abstract Study objective This study mainly aimed to identify the effect of waiting times on patient satisfaction. Methods A clever questionnaire was designed, and it contained two parts. The first part includes a series of short, standardized questions about expected waiting time (EWT), reasonable waiting time (RWT), limited waiting time (LWT), and basic personal information. This part of the questionnaire was filled in when the patient entered the waiting area. The second part includes perceived waiting time (PWT) and satisfaction evaluation, and this part was filled before patients entered the doctor’s office. The two questionnaires were summarized by the same number. The actual waiting time (AWT) was calculated based on the time difference between the registration time recorded by the experimenter and the time between entering the clinic. Linear regression was used to analyze the influence of waiting times on satisfaction. Before starting data collection, this study was approved by the hospital health ethics committee. Results A total of 323 questionnaires were collected, in which 292 (90.4%) were valid. EWT, LWT, RWT, and PWT had a significant effect on patient’s satisfaction (p = 0.006, p = 0.043, p = 0.009, p = 0.000), whereas AWT had no significant effect on satisfaction (p = 0.365). The difference between EWT and AWT had a significant effect on satisfaction (p = 0.000), while the difference between PWT and AWT had a significant effect on satisfaction (p = 0.000). Age, education background, gender, appointment, and hospital visit experience had no significant effect on patient satisfaction (p = 0.105, p = 0.443, p = 0.260, p = 0.352, p = 0.461). Conclusions The patient’s satisfaction of waiting time was not directly affected by the AWT, but by the subjective waiting times. And the difference between AWT and EWT has a significant impact on patient’s satisfaction. Meanwhile, the difference between AWT and PWT also has a significant impact on patient’s satisfaction. Therefore, service quality can be improved by hospital managers by focusing on the adjustment of patients’ subjective waiting time while reducing the objective waiting time.