Background:

The evaluation of the patient satisfaction is essential to improve the quality of anesthesia.

Objective:

To know the perception of patients regarding the quality of the anesthesia received at our hospital.

Patients and methods:

Adults without mental or psychiatric impairment. We applied a questionnaire designed by us (Cuestionario de Percepción de Calidad Anestésica, CPCA) with two domains (communication and anesthesia efficacy) and patient’s overall satisfaction.

Results:

103 patients. The overall satisfaction was excellent in 64%, good in 33.9%, regular in one person and bad in another. In the communication domain, 96.2% perceived it either good or excellent and 3.8% (4/103) as very bad. For efficacy, 67.9% perceived it either good or excellent, 26% regular and 5.8% bad. The median of the satisfaction score was 8 (maximum 10 points). The main reasons for the perception of a bad communication were little information anesthesia risks or/and failure on an introduction by the anesthesiologist. Concerning anesthesia efficacy, the principal factor for dissatisfaction was the presence of post-anesthetic pain.

Conclusion:

A high proportion of our patients expressed satisfaction with the anesthesia received. To improve, a better communication of the anesthetic risks is necessary, as well as control of post-surgical pain.