Aim
To investigate whether the way doctor conducts consultation with the patient affects patient's satisfaction for the service.
Research method
This study will be conducted as a field experiment in the psychiatry department of xxx General Hospital.
Experimental design
Independent measure design will be used. Half of the participants will be allocated to sharing consultation group while the other half will be participating in directing consultation group.
Variables
IV: Type of consultation (sharing/directing)
DV: Patient's satisfaction (25 items questionnaire)
Operationalisation of variables
Questionnaire will consists of 25 closed questions with 5 point Likert scale from 1-5 (1 being strongly disagree, 5 being strongly agree)
Example questions: 'I enjoyed the session today', 'I hope to have the same experience on the next session'
Filler questions: 'I visit this hospital often' (to reduce demand characteristics)
Procedure
Participants arrive at the doctor's office and the doctor will perform consultation on the patient base on the IV group they are allocated to. Consultation content will be personalised based on the patients' needs, only the style will be different. Time of visit will be flexible according to the patients availability. After consultation, the patients will be given the satisfaction questionnaire in paper and pencil method along with a consent form to be completed and submitted together with the questionnaire before leaving.
Controls and standardisations
The same doctor will do the consultation for all participants. Each consultation session will only last for 50 minutes to ensure that their satisfaction is not affected by the duration.
Data analysis
Quantitative data is collected. The mean satisfaction score of two groups will be calculated and plotted as a bar chart with x-axis as IV, y-axis as mean score. The group with greater mean score implies that they have higher satisfaction with the style of consultation. Error bars can be plotted to find the significance of the results.