Clients’ Satisfaction with Primary Health Care in Muscat

Background: to measure clients’ satisfaction with primary healthcare in the capital of oman, muscat, and also to identify thefactors affecting their satisfaction.methods: through a cross-sectional study in health centers, 400participants during the period from november 2009 to february2010 were interviewed about their satisfaction degree with theprimary health care services and setting. four urban primary healthcare clinics from muscat were selected randomly. six domains ofsatisfaction including accessibility to services, continuity of care,humaneness of staff, comprehensiveness of care, provision ofhealth education, and effectiveness of services were calculatedfrom selected variables. the mean score of each area werecalculated and then divided by the number of items in each area.finally satisfaction areas were ranked based on recent criteria.results: mean age was 29.5 years (sd = 9.37) for male and 26.01years (sd = 7.12) for female participants. all the areas weresuitable and only continuity of care had negative score. the rankedareas of satisfaction were as humanness of staff, effectivenessof services, access to services, provision of health educationalmaterials, comprehensiveness of care, continuity of care.conclusions: primary health care were accepted as a suitablestrategy for providing health care among clients of urban healthcenters of muscat. it can be recommended to other countries touse this as a choice for health care provision.