Patient Satisfaction Studies and the Monitoring of the Right to Health: Some Thoughts Based on a Review of the Literature

The concept of patient satisfaction has a long history of controversy and debate. Yet it remains a topic of scientific investigation. Little is known about its importance as a tool for monitoring the right to health. A non-exhaustive review of scientific articles reported in Medline was done in order to better understand how patient satisfaction can be investigated and what it indicates. Over time and years the concept of patient satisfaction shows an evolution towards complexity, while becoming more operational. Indeed patient satisfaction studies have proved of value as a health indicator and allowed the implementation of improvement strategies in the health sector based on “the voice of the patient”, thus becoming a potential right to health indicator. However they do have limits, but we consider nevertheless that they are of interest as a health indicator and that they should be put as such on the public health agenda.