Background: Patients' satisfaction represents an important indicator for the quality of health care delivery and it is a widely accepted factor which needs to be studied repeatedly for better functioning of health care systems specially in the era of patient centered healthcare provision.
Aim: To improve the quality of health care at Zagazig university hospitals through assessing the out-patients' satisfaction level and determining factors affecting it.
Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted on a total sample of 370 patients selected by systematic random sampling from Zagazig university hospital outpatient clinics. The collected data included socio-demographic characteristics and assessing patient satisfaction by using a modified form of SERVQUAL questionnaire.
Results: The total mean satisfaction score about the studied outpatient clinics was 2.46±0.27 out of 3 (85.1%). It was found that being female, older age, non-working or manual worker, and very low social class participants were significantly more satisfied than their counter participants. the older age, higher educational level, lower social class , satisfaction about; hospital environment, treatment effect, nurses' and administrative staff performance, and adequacy of information given for patients are the main significant predictors affecting patient satisfaction.
Conclusion: Generally, patient satisfaction was adequate . Patients were mostly satisfied about employee's performance. However, service procedure and environment and facilities gained the least patient satisfaction. The main predictors of patients' satisfaction were old age, high education, low social class, satisfaction about; hospital environment, treatment effect, nurses' and administrative staff performance and adequacy of information given.