Abstract
BACKGROUND: The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) now named National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) was launched to achieve easy access to affordable quality healthcare for all Nigerians. This study aimed at evaluating patients' satisfaction with the services accessed at the NHIS clinic in a tertiary teaching hospital in Southwest, Nigeria. METHODOLOGY: This cross-sectional study carried out at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti, Nigeria included all adult patients (> 18 years) who have been enrolled in the scheme for at least one year and have accessed healthcare at the clinic within three months preceding the study. Data was collected from 391 patients using a semi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaire in an exit interview. Data on patients' satisfaction with the quality of care was adapted from the Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ 18). Data entry and analyses were done with the SPSS version 26.0. RESULTS: The mean age (±SD) of the respondents was 43.5±14.5 years. More than half 204 (52.2%) of the patients were male, 291 (74.4%) were married, and 319 (81.6%) had attained tertiary level education. The overall satisfaction score was 75.02 ± 6.37, with communication (78.5 ± 11.6) and interpersonal manner (79.6 ± 10.0) having the highest scores. Predictors of overall satisfaction were longer travel time (p < 0.001) and readiness to return to the clinic for treatment (p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: There was a high level of patient's satisfaction with the quality of healthcare services rendered at the NHIS clinic, with domains related to interpersonal and communication ranked highest. Travel time and willingness to return were factors significantly associated with patients' satisfaction. There is the need for the management of NHIS clinics to continuously improve on the quality of healthcare services provided.