We examined the relationship between a patient's spirituality and satisfaction with physicians during hospitalization. Data were collected using the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES), the Tool to Assess Inpatient Satisfaction with Care from Hospitalists (TAISCH) and a five-question, internally-developed, patient satisfaction questionnaire (5QS). Scores were rescaled from 0 to 100 for easy comparison. Results showed a statistically significant increase in patient satisfaction with increasing spirituality. In the unadjusted model, each 1% increase in DSES score (or 1% decrease in spirituality) was associated with 0.21% (p < 0.001) and 0.14% (p = 0.002) decrease in patient satisfaction with physicians as measured by 5QS and TAISCH respectively. The results were consistent after adjustment for the patient's age, gender, and race. With the increasing influence, patient satisfaction scores have on the health care system, the results from this study help us better understand how these scores are influenced.
Keywords: Patient satisfaction; physician-patient relationship; spirituality.