Patient satisfaction with different asthma-training variants.

OBJECTIVE

Information on patient satisfaction with professional health care delivery in asthmatics is rare, and the question as to how asthma education programmes affect such satisfaction has not yet been addressed.

METHODS

This multi-centre study investigated three different variants of an asthma education programme for adults. Patients participated either in variant B (basic training with teacher-directed presentation, two 90 min sessions), variant C (comprehensive training, four sessions), variant D (including additional psychological components, minimum five sessions), or variant E (equivalent to B in outpatient context). At the end of the training the perceived satisfaction with the programme and reported personal benefit were assessed by means of a new inventory that was developed.

RESULTS

The sample comprised N = 320 patients (n = 244 inpatients and n = 76 outpatients) ranging in age from 18 to 80 years (M = 46.3 years). The average total score for educational satisfaction of all participants was 8.0 (maximum score = 10). Choice of topics was judged particularly positive (M = 8.58), followed by the structure of training/setting-conditions (M = 8.0). The perceived personal benefit from the training was evaluated less positively (M = 7.32). When comparing the programme variants, patients' average satisfaction tends to increase with the extent and intensity of the training offered. Outpatients showed significantly less satisfaction in contrast to inpatients. Inpatients' satisfaction with the three variants increased with extensiveness and intensity of the training, while the contrast of between-group comparisons (B-C, B-D and C-D) was significant.

CONCLUSION

Assessment of the patient's view of health care services should complement standardised evaluation methods, especially in multi-intervention rehabilitation programmes.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Rehabilitation-specific diagnostic measures should be developed and validated in order to better assess patients' satisfaction and training efficacy from the patient's perspective. Further study is recommended on how far individualised training measures might increase subjective benefit.