Assefa Sisay*, Ali Yimer Mohammed and Tiruwork Alemnew
Background: Global disease has sparked renewed interest in universal health coverage in high-income countries. Still, the quality of care has received little attention. Numerous studies have analyzed health system responsiveness and related concepts. However, fewer studies have applied the concept for the evaluation of specific healthcare delivery structures. This study aimed to assess the level of perceived health system responsiveness to patients in North Wollo public hospitals to analyze the determinants of health system responsiveness.
Objective: This study aims to assess health system responsiveness among patients visiting North Wollo public hospitals.
Methods: Institution-based cross-sectional study among 758 patients was conducted at North Wollo public hospitals from July to September 2023. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the study population. A structured questionnaire was used as a data collection tool and the data was entered in Epi-data and analyzed using SPSS version 25.0. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to present the findings. The association between dependent and independent variables was assessed by binary and multivariable logistic regression.
Results: The overall health system responsiveness performance of the study was 63.8%. There was a high good responsiveness performance for the basic confidentiality domain (73.6%), dignity domain (69.7%) and communication domain (63.9%). More than half (53.8%) of the respondents had good satisfaction. Regarding patient health quality, more than three-fourths (86.7%) had good perceived patient health quality. Patients’ satisfaction and out-of-pocket payment for transport to reach the health facility were identified as factors affecting the performance of health system responsiveness.
Conclusion: Overall, health system responsiveness performance was higher than in a case-specific study in Ethiopia. This study revealed that the health system responsiveness has differed across domains. Accordingly, of the seven domains that were measured, confidentiality and dignity performed better than other domains.
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