Factors influencing patient waiting time in public health facilities in Tanzania

Mabiti, Joseph (2023) Factors influencing patient waiting time in public health facilities in Tanzania. Masters thesis, The Open University of Tanzania.

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Abstract

Waiting times for health care services is identified as an important indicator for patient satisfaction. Often times, waiting time is also associated with quality of health services. There is limited information about what influences long patient waiting in health facilities within Siha District. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the factors influencing patient waiting time at Charlotte Heath center. Which can be challenged on the ground that sometimes you can find that patients are satisfied with services provided regardless of how long they have waited. Thus, the main objective of the study was to examine the factors influencing patient waiting time in public health facilities and specifically, to determine how the type of services sought affect patient waiting time, to assess how the patient arrival time affects waiting time and to examine how availability of healthcare providers affect patient waiting time at the Charlotte Heath center. The study employed a case study design. The study was conducted at Charlotte Heath Center at Siha District in Tanzania. The study enrolled 108 respondents. The study participants were selected by convenience and purposive sampling techniques. Data were collected by using questionnaire, interview and documentary review. Quantitative data was analysed by using SPSS and the findings gathered from the field revealed that majority of respondents were dissatisfied with the overall time that they spent while waiting for health care services which was associated with delays in several service points. These delays resulted from the shortage of health workers, inadequate facilities for service provision and logistics, few medical personnel per shift, lack of effective appointment system, types of services sought by patients and arrival time of patients. Also, results depicted from the study show that respondents were satisfied with the availability and quality of health services delivered at this facility despite of waiting for long time. The study concludes that, there is a need to address limitations associated with human resources (availability), infrastructure, and internal hospital procedures. More efforts should be done to improve the capacities of lower-level health facilities in order to address the challenges of self-referral from lower-level facilities at Charlotte Heath Center.

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