Author(s)

Osama A. Al-Jama¹, Abdel W. Awadalla^2*, Hiroko Arikawa³

¹Ministry of Health, Primary Healthcare Clinics of Eastern Province, Khobar, Saudi Arabia.
²Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (Formerly University of Dammam), Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
³Independent Author, Springfield, MO, USA.

Over the past few years, greater attention has been paid to the importance of incorporating behavioral health treatment into primary health care (PHC) settings in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The purpose of the present study was to compare the participants’ satisfaction on psychological services and quality of life (QOL) among primary healthcare clinics, psychiatric hospitals and healthy controls. The Arabic version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life-short version (WHOQOL-Bref) and Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) were administered to 36 PHC participants, 60 hospital participants, and 63 healthy controls. In all QOL domains, there was no significant difference obtained on participants’ QOL between PHC and hospital settings. Except for similar score to PHC participants on overall QOL (OQOL), healthy controls scored higher than the other two groups on four QOL domains and General Health (GH) facet. As for clients’ satisfaction, participants under PHC setting reported significantly higher satisfaction compared to hospitals and healthy controls. Hospital participants reported higher client care satisfaction than healthy controls. Improvement in the quality of mental health care such as ease of referrals and detection of undiagnosed mental health conditions could be the cause for higher satisfaction with PHC services. Stigma associated with mental illness creates serious barriers to Saudi patient’s access to psychiatric clinics of large hospitals. There is a need for incorporating qualified mental health providers into PHC and educating the general public to become aware of certain beliefs and attitudes that limit access to treatment and prospects for recovery of persons with mental illnesses.

Primary Healthcare, Client Satisfaction, Quality of Life, Stigma, Saudi Arabia

Al-Jama, O. , Awadalla, A. and Arikawa, H. (2019) Client Satisfaction and Quality of Life at Primary Healthcare Clinics and Psychiatric Hospitals in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Open Journal of Psychiatry, 9, 1-14. doi: 10.4236/ojpsych.2019.91001.