Psychological Distress and Patient Satisfaction

Abstract

Psychologically distressed patients and clients of health care and social service organizations are found to report somewhat more dissatisfaction with services than do the nondistressed. Four explanations for this relationship are examined: 1) the psychologically distressed are generally dissatisfied; 2) service providers react negatively to the psychologically distressed; 3) psychologically distressed patients are dissatisfied when service providers do not respond to their psychological needs; and 4) patients who deny their psychological distress tend to be dissatisfied. The results show that the psychologically distressed report more dissatisfaction because of the very high levels of dissatisfaction found among patients who deny having personal problems.