Satisfaction with hospital rehabilitation: is it related to life satisfaction, functional status, age or education?

Satisfaction with care, functional and cognitive status, life satisfaction, anxiety, and sociodemographic variables were correlated in 55 in-patients admitted to a rehabilitation unit after hip or knee surgery. The study aimed at investigating whether, as an index of care quality, patient satisfaction can be considered as a distinct domain or instead is subsidiary to other patient characteristics. Patient satisfaction with rehabilitation care was measured through a questionnaire, SAT-16. The SAT-16 scores were moderately correlated with a short form of the Life Satisfaction Index (LSI-11: rs = 0.41, p = 0.001), but did not correlate with either the Functional Independence Measure (FIM), the STAI form X (the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory), age or educational level. According to the "discrepancy model", the fair degree of correlation between SAT-16 and LSI-11 could be explained by connecting both expressions of satisfaction with personal background expectations and their perceived degree of fulfilment. The results confirm, also for rehabilitation care, that patient satisfaction should be considered as a valuable specific outcome, independent of most of the patient characteristics investigated (functional and cognitive status, anxiety, age, and education).