5.3.4 Variable Descriptions Of Health Care

5.3.4 Variable descriptions
Dependent variables
Dependent variable is in-patient overall satisfaction measured by 6 items, including overall satisfaction with competency of health professionals, overall satisfaction with interpersonal care skills of health professionals, overall satisfaction with treatment received in the hospital, overall satisfaction with hospital physical environment, overall satisfaction with admission service in the hospital and overall satisfaction with services of the hospital in general. All items were measured by 7-point Likert scales, 1 very satisfied to 7 very dissatisfied.
Independent variables
Independent variables consist of 3 components which are variables on patient perceptions of health service quality, individual
Health professionals’ interpersonal skills were measured by communication skills of doctors and nurses (items DocCou, DocHelp, DocPay, NurCou, NurDeam, NurList, ProSymp and StaffAd), information and explanation skills (items DocExp, DocTest, DocMed and NurExp) and time spending (items DocTime and NurTime). Hospital’s physical environment quality was measured by cleanliness and comfort (by items RClean, BathClean, RBed, RTemp, RLight, RVent, RNumpP, MealApp and MealPort) and sufficiency of facility maintenance (REquip, BathNum, HosBuild, HosEquip and VisPlace). Confidentiality was measured by items Privacy1 and Privacy2. Variables easiness of access (items AddEasy, LocApp, Afford, Bureac and Inequal) and availability of health professionals (items WaitDoc, WaitNur, LateSche and ProCorr) measured accessibility to the health care
Moreover, the ordinal level of scale enables to use more powerful statistical analysis than nominal level scale (Monette, D. R., Sullivan, T. J., Dejong, C. R., & Hilton, T. P, 2014).
Age of the respondents was measured in years and the average monthly household income measured in an average total household income per month in Mongolian national currency, tugrug, MNT (1euro = 2,295.40MNT (Bank of Mongolia, 2015)).
Gender, marital status, ethnicity, residence, education, employment, health insurance status of the respondents were all measured by nominal scales. Self-assessed health status variables consisted of items psychological health status (PsyH), current health status (CurrH), overall health status (OverH) and overall quality of life (LifeQ). These variables were measured by a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 very good to 7 very