Objective To analyze and explore positive emotional experiences of patients, in order to provide reference for improving the medical services. Methods Using NVivo software, praise letters from a tertiary hospital in Guangdong in 2020 and 2021 were used as the research object for three-level coding. The positive emotional experiences of patients were explored through tools such as analytic hierarchy process and node item map. Results A total of 8601 patient praise letters were received, and after screening, a total of 8128 valid texts were obtained. In 2020, there were 2570 patient praise letters, including 69 from the emergency department, 638 from the outpatient department, and 1863 from the inpatient department. In 2021, there were 5558 patient praise letters, including 203 from the emergency department, 2071 from the outpatient department, and 3284 from the inpatient department. The most praise letters were from the inpatient department, with a total of 5147 letters (63.3%). There were 2709 letters (33.3%) from outpatient department, and 272 letters (3.3%) from emergency department. The classification of patient praise letters showed that patient praise for the process and individuals were most common (77.4%). After step-by-step encoding, the valid text formed 36 third level nodes, 8 second level nodes, and 3 first level nodes. Patient praise letters mainly focused on emotional evaluation at the first level node, followed by emotional expression and emotional response. Word frequency analysis showed that in terms of positive emotional experiences, the word “thank you” had the highest frequency among patients. In terms of patient perception of service, the term “patience” had the highest frequency. Conclusions When patients express praise for medical services, they pay more attention to the personal performance of medical staff and the experience of the service process compared to the final result. In the process of hospital management, the emotions of patients should be fully considered.
Objective To analyze and evaluate the present status of application of clinical pathway evaluation indexes in China, in order to provide references to establish an evaluation system on clinical pathway. Methods Such databases as CBM (2004-2009), VIP (2004-2009), CNKI (2004-2009) and WanFang Data (2004-2009), and some relevant websites were searched systematically for collecting Chinese literature about domestic clinical pathway evaluation indexes. Results Among the 1 175 articles included, 135 (11%) were published in the core periodicals, 19 (2%) were masterate theses, and 1 021 were other kinds of articles. As to 135 core periodical literature and 19 masterate theses, most of which were graded into the second level of evidence, accounting for 96%. The analysis on the appearance of indexes showed that 87% of inconsistency could be identified between the contents and terms of indexes. Common indexes were summarized as the following four aspects: cost index, clinical index, serving index and quality evaluation index. There were 78% of all the 1 175 articles focusing on the application of nursing and medical education, in which only one masterate thesis used social research methods such as Delphi, focus group, experts scoring (percentile), etc. Conclusion Currently, there are some issues existing in the evaluation indexes of clinical pathway in China, such as low methodological quality of literature, irregularly and randomly using statistical terms, and lack of studies on system construction of clinical pathway evaluation indexes.
Objective To enhance medical quality evaluation by conducting a systematic review and evidence-based synthesis of relevant research. Methods Such databases as CBM (1978 to 2009), VIP (1989 to 2009), CNKI (1990 to 2009), WanFang Dissertation database (1997 to 2009), and relevant websites were searched to identify relevant Chinese studies for the synthetical evaluation on methods evaluating medical quality. Results A total of 216 articles including 184 observational studies, 29 traditional reviews, and 3 experts’ opinions were identified. Twenty-one synthetical evaluation methods were used among 216 articles, and the top three methods which had been quoted more than 30 times were: RSR (19.72%), TOPSIS method (19.03%), and comprehensive index (12.80%). Among the 184 observational research papers, the documents using one kind of comprehensive evaluation took up 89.13% (164/184), the ones using two kinds of evaluation methods accounted for 9.78% (18/184), and those using three kinds of methods accounted for 1.09% (2/184). Conclusion a) The joint use of two or more than two methods is not common. The majority of studies using single comprehensive evaluation method focus on RSR, TOPSIS and comprehensive index method; b) The comprehensive evaluation method is considered non-uniform, some not even standardized; c) Most of the medical literatures do not correct the value of quality assessment; and d) Considerably most studies perform retrospective evaluation with historical data.