Consumer Satisfaction Index of Caregivers of Individuals with Communication Disorders

Abstract

Consumer satisfaction index or CS/ is a rating scale used to express how effective are the services of a professional and/or the institute. A questionnaire with 20 questions was prepared and administered on 130 parents /caregivers of persons with various communication disorders to calculate the CS/ for speech, language and hearing services. In group wise analysis, the HL group was most satisfied (73.92%) whereas the MR group was least satisfied (68.09%). The question wise analysis showed that the parents! caregivers were "very much satisfied" with the fees structure, usefulness of the clinical services at work place/ school, amount of time and support provided by the family members. The areas in which they were "satisfied" included the overall services provided, the number of days per week provided for therapy, counselling, home training provided, improvement in communication skills, the approach of the Institute staff, information regarding various concessional facilities provided by the Government, barrier free environment of the Institute, availability of other medical professionals and usefulness of orientation programs and educational materials. The "fairly satisfied" areas included the time, duration and attention provided during evaluation and therapy, and information provided about the clinical condition during evaluation. These were the gray areas which need to be strengthened for effective delivery of clinical services by the Institute. However, there was no domain in the questionnaire in which "not satisfied" response was obtained. This shows that the Institute is successful in aelivering clinical services to the persons with communication disorders. Though this was an exploratory study, the results have reflected the consumer satisfaction index of the Institute as 72%.