Patient satisfaction with a nurse practitioner in a university emergency service.

Abstract

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. A case-control study comparing responses by means of a five-point scale from a prospectively designed telephone survey. 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. Patients or, for children and incompetent adults, the person who accompanied the patient to the ED. 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]). This study supports data from earlier studies suggesting that patients are satisfied with ambulatory care delivered by NPs.