Satisfaction with the medical staff support in the process of dealing with infertility

Abstract

Regardless of the trend of using the patient-centred approach in (in)fertility clinics, there has been no research on satisfaction with medical staff care in Serbia yet. Accordingly, the main aim of this study is to examine the metric characteristics of the first quantitative instrument for measuring satisfaction with this type of support in Serbia - the Medical Support Assessment Questionnaire. A total of 87 women, currently facing the problem of infertility, participated in the study. The reliability of the Questionnaire is high and amounts to .96, expressed through the Kronbach's Alpha coefficient.. Using the Principal Components Method, the one-factor solution is obtained. An additional aim of the study is to examine satisfaction levels with different aspects of support. The best rated aspect of the medical staff support refers to technical skills and competencies for treatment implementation, while the worst rated aspects include emotional support by the medical staff and patient education about the emotional effects of treatment. Furthermore, the results indicate that there is no statistically significant difference in these estimates depending on the length of infertility or age of participants. The findings show that medical staff is still focused on the medical aspects of the treatment and its effectiveness instead of focusing on a holistic, patient-centred approach. These open up the space for working on integrating a holistic approach into fertility clinics in Serbia. In addition, the results highlight the importance of having an effective and reliable instrument for measuring satisfaction with medical support for the purposes of monitoring and improving the ART clinics service.

Keywords

• medical support
• technical skills and competencies
• emotional support