Patient Satisfaction as a Quality Indicator in Pediatric Surgical Care: A Systematic Review

Objectives:Synthesize evidence-based findings related to patient satisfaction as a quality indicator in pediatric surgical care.Methods:We conducted a qualitative systematic review, querying 4 standard search engines (1992-2013) for studies specific to pediatric surgical fields in which patient/parent satisfaction or experience-of-care was a primary outcome measure. Data were systematically analyzed to determine study characteristics, setting, parent/patient focus, measure of experience, and bias. Two independent investigators independently reviewed all articles.Results:The initial search yielded 4678 publications (1433 duplicates) of which 170 underwent full text review. Thirty-five were included for analysis; the majority (24/35,77%) were published in the last 5 years. Studies examined experience of the child (4/35), parent (19/35), or both (12/35). Experience and satisfaction were evaluated either by validated self-assessment instruments (9) or satisfaction tools (13), or by non-standard institutional ...