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, work- ers stress and burnout. The present study ex- amines the relationships between patient per- ceived quality of care (in terms of satisfaction with regard to accessibility, organizational effi- ciency and humaneness of care), and workers’ perceived quality of organizational life (in term of organizational support and availability of re- source and reward), quality of relationship in the work-unit (superior and coworkers), quality of relationship with patients (disproportionate cli- ent expectations and customer verbal aggres- sion) and individual health (emotional exhaus- tion 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 accessibil- ity and humaneness of care were negatively associated with disproportionate patient expec- tations, patient verbal aggression, emotional exhaustion and positively associated with avai- lability of material recourses. Moreover, acces- sibility was also positively associated with the organizational support while organizational effi- ciency 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 or- ganizations improve the wellbeing of their workers, their organizational performance and the quality of their service at the same time.