Researcher Khitam Dar Al-Deek, a student in the Master’s program in Quality Management in Health Institutions, defended her thesis titled: “Exploring the Role of Trust as a Mediating Factor between Patient Satisfaction and Quality of Health Care.”
The research aims to understand how trust in health service providers, especially doctors and nurses, acts as a mediator that affects the relationship between patient satisfaction and the joint quality of health care services among patients residing in the internal medicine ward in three governmental hospitals in the West Bank, Palestine.
The researcher used a quantitative approach and a cross-sectional design, by distributing a questionnaire to 381 patients, who had exceeded a specific period of stay, distributed among the internal wards of three governmental hospitals. The questionnaires included key dimensions related to patient satisfaction, patient trust in doctors and nurses, and patient perceptions of the quality of health care services.
The results of the questionnaire analysis indicated that there is a positive and high relationship between: patient satisfaction, quality of health services, and trust of the patient staying for more than 24 hours. Patients also expressed their trust in health service providers (doctors and nurses in the internal medicine wards that were studied).
The researcher recommendations stressed that health care organizations should promote initiatives to build and enhance trust among health professionals as this has an important impact on improving patient satisfaction in general and the quality of health care services.
The thesis was supervised by Dr. Imad Abukhader. The committee of examiners included: Dr. Youssef Mimi and Dr. Moataz Dridi.