Patient satisfaction and clinical parameters in psychiatric inpatients--the prevailing role of symptom severity and pharmacologic disturbances.

OBJECTIVE: A high degree of satisfaction is probably one of the most important aims for each patient during medical treatment. However, database on the influencing variables in a general psychiatric inpatient sample is still small. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify clinical variables related to patients' treatment satisfaction.
METHODS: In 113 patients (59 females; mean age, 48.3 ± 16.6 years; mean treatment duration, 1.4 ± 1.2 months) admitted to a psychiatric hospital, data were assessed on treatment satisfaction using the ZUF-8 questionnaire ("Fragebogen zur Patientenzufriedenheit"; questionnaire of patient satisfaction) at discharge and on general treatment variables as well as the psychosocial functioning using the "Basisdokumentation" (basic documentation) questionnaire including Clinical Global Impression scale (CGI) and Global Assessment of Functioning scale (GAF) at admission and discharge. Student t tests, univariate variance analyses, and Pearson correlations were performed.
RESULTS: ZUF-8 sum score correlated significantly negatively with CGI score at discharge (part 1: P = .036), positively with GAF at discharge (P = .011), and as a trend with the reduction of CGI during the treatment (CGI change; P = .050). Patients with pharmacologic disturbances (P = .003) and with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder or a personality disorder were less content (trend; P = .071). Satisfaction did not differ in dependency of the variables age, sex, native language, number of inpatient treatments, therapeutic setting of the ward, duration of disorder or treatment, level of school education, bodily impairment, number of somatic diagnoses, psychopharmacologic treatment (vs none), antidepressants, body weight, or body weight change.
CONCLUSION: The results of the study suggest that patient satisfaction is dependent on symptom severity and global functioning at discharge, on pharmacologic disturbances during treatment, and on the diagnostic group. Therefore, symptom relief and reduction of adverse side effects as far as possible should be the primary aim of an inpatient treatment.