Impact of Soft Skills Training of Nursing Assistants on Indoor Patients Satisfaction Scores in Armed Forces Hospitals-A Comparative Study

Abstract

Armed Forces Hospitals are continuously in an endeavor to provide best quality health care to their worthy patients. The hospital health care is therefore dependent on team work. A harmonious work frequency among these team members can yield high quality of health care and reduce stress amongst the patients who are admitted in Armed Forces Hospitals. It has been observed that patients satisfaction scores are gradually decreasing in Armed Forces Hospitals due to lack of both hard and soft skills of doctors and paramedical staff which needs to be addressed by a training program envisaging the importance of soft skills training to improve patients satisfaction scores and to improve the image of Health care setups of Armed Forces Soft skills teaching to nursing assistants is an imminent need linked with the preparedness of Armed Forces Hospitals to achieve the hallmark of excellence in healthcare. Soft skills are built on attitude, manifest as communication and polished by etiquettes. Keeping in view the significance of soft skills in addition to the clinical skills and knowledge, a training initiative is required with specific focus on improving the attitudes of the nursing assistants. Being an integral and vital part of the healthcare team at the hospital, a training program for nursing assistants needs to be formulated. Review of the literature view was carried out through internet and by consulting relevant books. Structured Questionnaire from PSQ-III, tailored according to the study was used to gather information about impact of soft skills training on the indoor patients satisfaction of CMH Malir and PAF Hospital Faisal before and after the conduct of training. The data obtained was analyzed and findings drawn. It is to conclude that soft skills training should be part of the curriculum of nursing training at AMC School & Centre and other Armed Forces setups so that overall image of health care setups of Armed Forces and indoor patient’s satisfaction scores could be improved.