Revista de Ciencias Clínicas y Médicas

Abstracto

Perception of Quality of Healthcare Services among NHIS-HMO Enrollees Visiting Selected Hospitals in Lagos, Nigeria

Abigail Affiong Mkperedem*, Ogunlade PB, Chisaa O Igbolekwu, Bamidele Rasak, Abiodun Olawale Afolabi

Background: Assessing and communicating healthcare services quality involves a detailed assessment of relevant and consensual variables that show the complex nature of health care. The Nigerian National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is a government initiative aiming towards ensuring all citizens healthcare needs are provided for at a reasonable cost. This study objective was to examine how enrollees perceived the quality of healthcare services during visits to selected hospitals in Lagos, Nigeria.

Methods: Anchored on the structural functionalist theory, the study triangulated between quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (In-Depth Interview (IDIs)) method. Using simple random and convenient sampling technique, a total of 252 questionnaires and 9 in-depth interviews were used to elicit data from selected respondents across 9 healthcare facilities in 3 local government areas.

Results: 26.3% of the respondents disagreed to humane treatment, 29% confirmed lack of prompt attention; while 59.9% of the enrollees asserted that Healthcare Facility’s (HCFs) were competent in providing healthcare services, unexplainable long waiting queues was lamented by 56.4%. While, 50.0% majority of the respondents had a positive perception rate, a significant 29% and 21% had a negative and average perception. Unlike tangible products which can be inspected for consistency during manufacturing process and subsequently, IDIs responses showed healthca re services is more often than not incorporeal objects that have no material existence. Chi-square result shows significant correlations from the group comparisons exists between quality of healthcare services and enrollees perception (P<0.01, χ²(16)=32.051) and the Spearman’s correlation was positive at. 183.

Conclusions: Enrollees provided insights into what they considered significant in quality service and how they perceive quality of such services accessed making for relevant recommendations like access to low quality services complaint and need to work to correct the grossly skewed allocation of enrollees across HCFs in order to limit the long waiting queue.