Apr 20th, 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Title
The Effects of Waiting Room Appearance on Patient Satisfaction
Faculty Mentor
Information
This research looked at how certain physical attributes in a physician’s waiting area affected the patient’s opinion of that physician. The data was taken from 70 students on the Boise State campus. The students volunteered for this survey and were rewarded with extra credit for participating. Each of the nine questions asked for this research were part of a larger survey that was being given, compiled of 225 questions. The survey asked questions referring to how important certain physical attributes in a physician’swaiting area are to them and if the waiting area appearance affected their opinion of that physician. Correlations were used to show a relationship between each of the physical attributes measured and their influence those attributes have on the patient’sopinion of the physician. The physical attributes that were used for this study were waiting room color, r(68) = 0.33, ≤ .01; visual stimuli in the waiting area, r(66) = 0.33, p ≤ .01; and the comfort of the seating in the waiting area, r(68) = 0.25, p ≤ .05. This research also looked at the differences between gender on each of the physical attributes and t tests were used to calculate the data. The data show that for men and women there were no differences between the physical attributes, except for room color. The data show that waiting room color was more important to women than to men. The data also show that waiting area appearance does influence the patient’sopinion of that physician. There is a relationship between the affects of the physical attributes in the waiting area and the influence they have a patient’s opinion of their physician. This research suggests that patients are paying attention to waiting area appearance and this should not be ignored by the physician.