Patient satisfaction and occupational health of workers in hospital care setting: Associations and reciprocity

Research studies conducted in the healthcare sector usually examine patients’ and workers’ wellbeing as separate entities; however, recent studies have revealed significant correlations between, for example, patient satisfaction, workers stress and burnout. The present study examines the relationships between patient perceived quality of care (in terms of satisfaction with regard to accessibility, organizational efficiency and humaneness of care), and workers’ perceived quality of organizational life (in term of organizational support and availability of resource and reward), quality of relationship in the work-unit (superior and coworkers), quality of relationship with patients (disproportionate client expectations and customer verbal aggression) and individual health (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, job satisfaction). 147 workers and 132 patients from seven hospital wards in northern Italy constitute the data base for the study. Analyses showed that accessibility and humaneness of care were negatively associated with disproportionate patient expectations, patient verbal aggression, emotional exhaustion and positively associated with availability of material recourses. Moreover, accessibility was also positively associated with the organizational support while organizational efficiency with support from colleagues. Globally, the results of the present study confirm that staff wellbeing is an essential aspect in relation to the patient perception of the quality of care and supporting the assumption that healthy organizations improve the wellbeing of their workers, their organizational performance and the quality of their service at the same time.