| บทคัดย่อ(English) |
Now Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as a complementary and alternative medicine is becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. Since the Thai government has recognized the legitimacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, more patients are seeking it as a solution to chronic medical problems. Therefore, this study used a cross-sectional descriptive study on patients satisfaction towards current Traditional Chinese Medicine services at Hua Chiew general hospital in Bangkok, Thailand. The main purpose of this study was to measure the level of satisfaction of the study population, as well as to determine the factors that affected patients satisfaction when using the services of the Traditional Chinese Medicine. From March 3 to March 21, 2001, two hundred out-patients were randomly selected and interviewed at the hospital using a structured questionnaire. The data gathered included the background of the patients and patient factors such as health problem, knowledge about TCM, and attitude toward TCM. Moreover, TCM service factors such as convenience, informativeness, friendliness, service cost, quality of care, and effectiveness of the treatment were also included. It was found that the patients who had cold disease (musculo-skeletal system problems) and utilized more TCM services at this hospital were significantly more satisfied with the TCM services than the patients who had blockage disease (nerve system problems) and other diseases (p-value=0.041). Moreover, it was found that the patients who had a high level of knowledge and positive attitude towards TCM had a higher level of satisfaction from utilizing TCM services (p-value<0.0001). According to the results of this study, each of the TCM service factors such as convenience, informativeness, friendliness, service cost, quality of care, and effectiveness of treatment had a significant positive correlation with overall satisfaction (p-value <0.0001). The patients satisfaction levels showed that 37.0% of the patients had a high level of satisfaction while utilizing TCM services at the hospital. As a result it can be concluded that the TCM service practitioners provided a good quality of services and effectiveness of the treatment to their patients at the hospital. The results of this study suggest the need for the TCM practitioners to develop a communicative fluency in the Thai language. |