2023-2024

Health care services have an important role in meeting the needs and expectations of their users, both in terms of technical and interpersonal aspects of care. In addition, user feedback is indispensable for: (i) monitoring the quality of healthcare services; (ii) identifying problems to be corrected and/or new perspectives on the healthcare provided; and (iii) reorganizing healthcare services.

It is important that the provision of care meets the subjective needs of patient-users, so the assessment of user satisfaction is now recognized as a value to be added to other outcome measures such as health status or quality of life. It is even considered an indispensable component for the assessment of quality of care and there is evidence of its correlation with clinical outcomes. An assessment of user satisfaction makes it possible to identify what can be improved in health care services, in view of users' unmet needs or expectations, or what are the appropriate measures or strategies to improve the quality of health services and care.

Satisfaction data are typically used for two purposes. First, to evaluate the care provided and, in addition, to predict users' behaviors as «consumers», namely whether they recommend the health services they normally attend or whether they would return, if necessary, to those same services.

Following the Cooperation Protocol established between the Regional Health Directorate of the Regional Government of the Azores and the Center for Health Studies and Research of the University of Coimbra, this study aims to monitor the satisfaction that users of the nine Island Health Units (IHU) of the Autonomous Region of the Azores have with the care provided there.
The study included the Health Centers (HC) of the IHU of Santa Maria, São Miguel, Graciosa, Terceira, São Jorge, Pico, Faial, Flores and Corvo.

The system used to monitor and evaluate the user satisfaction in the Autonomous Region of the Azores was developed by CEISUC. Its aim is to provide information and deeper knowledge of the quality of the services provided, from the perspective of its users in order to contribute to the improvement of decision-making processes and ensure the continuous improvement of the services provided.
The respective conceptual model of analysis is presented in the following figure.

Users of each HC are invited to access the questionnaire in the existing computers or tablets and answer the questionnaire about that HC.
The questionnaire should be administered within the unit's facilities, in September 2023, randomly, to users who come to the HC for any reason, if they are 16 years of age or older and have verbal communication skills.

The response to the questionnaire is anonymous and CEISUC can never know who responded to the survey, much less what each individual responded to. Since this questionnaire is anonymous, we guarantee the complete confidentiality of the data provided to us. No one can ever be identified from the results of this survey.

Informed consent is given by participants after they read and affirmatively answer the first three questions of the online questionnaire where the ethical aspects are mentioned.

This study was approved by the Regional Directorate of Health of the Regional Secretariat for Health and Sport, Autonomous Region of the Azores.

To access the questionnaire "Users' Satisfaction Survey of the Island Health Units of the RAA" click here.