Influence of medical and social factors on patients’ satisfaction at the center for reproduction and family planning with medical care

BACKGROUND: The constant increase in the number of commercial medical organisations providing medical care using assisted reproductive technology (ART) and compulsory medical insurance funds necessitates the need to control the quality of medical services in this area. An important tool for this control is conducting sociological surveys of women undergoing infertility treatment using in vitro fertilisation (IVF) both in paid and free forms.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using a random sampling method, an anonymous survey was conducted on 398 patients of the Center for Reproduction and Family Planning in St. Petersburg, which provided medical care for infertility treatment using ART both at the expense of compulsory medical insurance and in paid form. The significance of differences in indicators was assessed using Student’s t-test for quantitative indicators. The significance of differences between qualitative characteristics was checked using contingency tables and Pearson’s chi-square test (χ²). Differences were considered significant at р <0.05.

RESULTS: Despite the high level of patient satisfaction with the provision of medical care using ART, 9.0% of women were partially or completely dissatisfied. Compulsory medical insurance funds were paid for infertility treatment using IVF for 12.1% of patients. The majority of patients paid for medical care themselves (87.9%), of which 13.1% of women believed that the cost of medical services in the center was excessive (χ²=29.08; р=0.000), and 10.9% thought that the cost does not correspond to the level of medical services provided (χ²=25.74; р=0.000). There was no significant influence of age (χ²=4.78; р=0.311), place of residence (χ²=1.79; р=0.409), presence of children (χ²=2.21; р=0.331), employment (χ²=2.91; р=0.233) and forms of payment for treatment (χ²=4.69; р=0.096) on the distribution of patients according to the degree of satisfaction with medical care. At the same time, it was determined that marital status (χ²=6.88; р=0.032) and income level (χ²=60.01; р=0.000) are factors that influence the degree of satisfaction of women with infertility treatment using ART.

CONCLUSION: Many medical and social factors have been identified to significantly affect satisfaction with medical care, such as the patient’s marital status and income level. Simultaneously, the economic form of payment for treatment did not have a significant effect on the degree of satisfaction.