Patient Satisfaction With a Nurse Practitioner in a University Emergency Service, ,

Study objective: To compare the overall satisfaction with emergency department care of patients seen by a nurse practitioner (NP) with that of patients seen in the usual fashion. Design: A case-control study comparing responses by means of a five-point scale from a prospectively designed telephone survey. Setting: Midwestern urban university hospital ED in which most patients are seen mainly by fourth-year medical students or house staff and all patients are seen and evaluated by the attending staff. Participants: Patients or, for children and incompetent adults, the person who accompanied the patient to the ED. Results: Overall satisfaction was good for both groups of patients and was not significantly different: 3.9 (SD, 1.1) for the NP group versus 4.0 (SD, 1.3) for the control group (P=.66 [NS]). Conclusion: This study supports data from earlier studies suggesting that patients are satisfied with ambulatory care delivered by NPs. [Rhee KJ, Dermyer AL: Patient satisfaction with a nurse practitioner in a university emergency service. Ann Emerg Med August 1995;26:130-132.]