臺北縣市呼吸器依賴病患決策家屬選擇呼吸照護病房因素之研究

Medical consumers have begun recently to request high quality medical services. Factors affecting hospital choice are very important for decision behavior of consumers. The purpose of this study was to determine the factors affecting the selection of Respiratory Care Wards (RCWs) for families of ventilator-dependent patients. The study employed a cross-sectional design. Structured questionnaires were developed to survey the main family decision-maker of ventilator-dependent patients from 20 randomly selected ones among 41 RCWs in Taipei. Out of 320 self-reported questionnaires sent out, 288 (94.4%) valid questionnaires were returned. Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal-Wallis test and Spearman rank correlation coefficient were utilized. The survey results showed that family decision-makers focused on the following five subscale factors affecting the selection of RCWs, which were ranked-ordered as follows: professional services, price factor, convenience factor, hospitalized services and hardware plan. Reported the most common selection of RCWs based on subscales of 5 structure factors: physician moral values, nurse attitude, and physician skill. Patient characteristics affecting selection of RCWs included gender, age, social welfare help and hemodialysis service. The relationship with the patient, marriage, personal education and sufficient information resources were the factors for affecting family decision-makers. These survey results provide an important reference for promoting the quality of RCWs.