Healthcare utilization and satisfaction with medical services in outpatient care among Polish adults aged 50+
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12923/2083-4829/2026-0017Keywords:
healthcare utilization, outpatient care, patients’ satisfactionAbstract
Proper functioning of a healthcare system is one of the determinants of life expectancy and health status. Patient satisfaction is an important, independent and complex indicator of healthcare quality. The aim of the study was to describe healthcare utilization including characteristics of Polish outpatient care users aged 50+ and to assess the satisfaction with care received during the most recent visit, both overall and by gender, age and place of residence.
The cross-sectional study was carried out in 2024 among 2006 randomly selected, community-dwelling adults in Poland. The study sample included 1203 participants who needed care in the 12 months prior to the interview, including 605 outpatient healthcare users who assessed satisfaction with received care.
In our study outpatient care users were more likely to be men, people aged over 70 years and those with multiple chronic conditions compared with people who didn’t use this type of care. Most of the outpatient care users were satisfied with received care (82.2%). Urban residents were less satisfied than rural residents with both the care they received during outpatient visit (79.9% vs 85.6%) and functioning of the healthcare system in Poland (42.2% vs 49.4%). No significant differences were found between age and gender groups.
The study showed a high level of satisfaction with outpatient medical care, despite less than half of outpatient users were satisfied with general Polish healthcare system. No age- or gender-disparities were observed in the assessment of the quality of outpatient care among this group of healthcare users.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Monika Brzyska, Karolina Majdak, Iwona Młozniak, Katarzyna Zawisza (Autor)
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