Improving the healthcare using perception of health professional and patients: Need to develop a patients centered structural equation model

Introduction: Although, there are increasing awareness towards patient-centered approaches which have a positive impact on adherence to treatment, self-management and patient satisfaction. There is a gap for perception of patient-centered care among patients and healthcare service providers. Aims: This study focuses largely on the perception of patients and the healthcare professionals on the important patient-centered aspects like patient's values, coordination of care, communication, physical and emotional support given to patients. Method: In this descriptive study at Sri Ramachandra university hospital and Madras Medical College hospital, a multi speciality hospital in India, primary data was obtained from 512 patients and 280 healthcare professionals on the dimension of patient-centered care. A structural equation model was developed based on earlier published literature used to perform a confirmatory factor analysis on proposed model to verify whether the entire factor has the related components. Multiple linear regressions, most common form of linear regression analysis was used to predict the value of a variable based on the value of two or more other variables. Results: Results suggest that perception of healthcare professionals and inpatients differs in the aspects like privacy, time spent, understanding the patient's needs, overall coordination, information and education, pain management, hospital environment and emotional trust. Conclusion: Though the perception differs from person to person, the healthcare providers can spend some time to understand the patient's needs and develop a model that all the employees can adopt it to reduce the indifference shown in the patient-centered care aspects.