Determinants of Parental Satisfaction With Health Care Services for Their Children With Disabilities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59519/mper4008Keywords:
children with disabilities, parents satisfaction, health care servicesAbstract
Children with disabilities generally require the same general health care services needed by every child, but often at increased frequency and intensity. They also require a medical rehabilitation to maintain or improve their functioning that children without disabilities do not generally need. Satisfaction with health care services among parents of children with disabilities may affect child’ adherence to treatment and, thus, may act as a factor contributing to treatment outcomes.
Through this transparent work, one will try to examine determinants of satisfaction with health care services among parents of children with disabilities. The PubMed database was searched. The key terms “ Children with disabilities”, “Parents satisfaction“ and „Health care services“ were used.
In previous research, we have found that most of the parents of children with disabilities were satisfied with received health care services in neuropaediatric clinics. Parents experiences with neuropaediatric clinics (i.e., if the assessment was suited to the child’s situation and cooperation with other public services e.g., social/educational services) were the most powerful determinants of satisfaction. Parents satisfaction was weakly associated with better general level of function in the child, higher socioeconomic status, and the respondent being a woman. The major determinants of parental satisfaction with disclosure are directness, understanding of parental concerns and good communication on the part of the disclosing professional, and receiving a large amount of information. The major determinant of parental satisfaction with child rehabilitative services was collaboration of the physician with the parents, which is associated with processes such as mutual decision making and sharing of responsibility.
Information on satisfaction with health care services among parents of children with disabilities are important indicators of the quality of health care delivered to children. Measuring satisfaction with health care services gives providers the opportunity to improve care, meet patients’ expectations, and effectively monitor health care performance.
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