Cross-sectional study was conducted at Felege Hiwot referral hospital, Bahir Dar City, Ethiopia from 1^st September 2012 to 2^nd November 2012. Bahir Dar City is the capital city of the Amhara National Regional State located at about 565 km northwest of Addis Ababa (the capital city of Ethiopia).

Targeted groups of patients for this study were diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and asthmatic patients. The sample size was determined by using a single population proportion formula, which took the proportion of overall satisfaction as 43.6% [11] , with a margin of error of 0.05 at the 95% confidence interval (CI). Adding 10% non- response rate, the final sample size was calculated to be 415 patients. From the hospital pervious report about patient flow, average number of adult patients with chronic illness who visited the hospital was 77 per day. Therefore the number of patients who visited the hospital was estimated for the study period; then sampling fraction for selecting the study participants was determined by dividing with total estimated number of patients during the data collection period to the total sample size which was calculated to be five. The first study participant was selected by lottery method among the list from one to five; the next study participant was identified systematically in every 5^th intervals until the required sample size was achieved.

A structured questionnaire was prepared according to the objectives of the study and the local situation of the study area in English language. Then the questionnaire was translated to Amharic and back to English to assure consistency of the tool. Discrepancies in the translation were resolved by mutual agreement with the research team. Pre-testing was conducted on 20 respondents at a referral hospital with similar settings.

The collected data were checked for completeness and consistency before being coded, entered and analyzed using SPSS version 19. Descriptive analysis using frequency distribution and percentages were calculated.

The research approved by Research Ethics Review Board of Bahir Dar University. Permission to conduct the study was also obtained from Health Bureau of Amhara National Regional State, and Felege Hiwote referral hospital. During data collection, the purpose of the study was clearly explained to the participants, and informed oral consent was obtained. Confidentiality and privacy was maintained.

A total of 415 adult patients having chronic illness were involved for this study. As shown in Table 1, 54.7% of the respondents were male, 43.4% were above 44 years old, 44.3% were married, and 40% never attended formal education and 60.7% were urban dwellers (Table 1).

Patients’ experience was assessed using 14 items. These items were about the quality of care, its convenience and the medical expense. Majority (74%) of the respondents had experienced long waiting time for physical ex- amination. Moreover, about 44% of the respondents were having long waiting time to get prescribed medications in pharmacy. About 64.6% of the respondents complained of inconvenient location of the hospital pharmacy.

More than 70% of study participants claimed that the cost of lab tests-blood and urine-was affordable while 55.2% of the patients claimed that the cost for X-ray test was not affordable.

Nearly 90% of study participants rated treatment provided by medical doctor as good. Moreover, nearly 70% of study participants also claimed that medical doctors give chance to patients to ask questions. However, 56.1% of the respondents claimed that nurses were not skilled in using medical equipment. Besides, about 65% of study participants complained that hospital officers did not give due attention to concerns of patients (Table 2).

About 50% of the respondents claimed that they travel more than 10 kilometers to reach the hospital. For about 70% of the study participants accessing public transport was not a problem. About 55% of study participants claimed to spent 10 birr or more for public transport.

More than 55% of the study participants claimed that the information provided to patients was inadequate. (Table 3).

The structural areas include physical facilities, and medical equipments. The process areas include: services pro- vided by deferent categories (doctors, nurses, registration, and laboratory). The level of the patient satisfaction towards OPD services was measured using 19 items with five ikert’s scale. The scale had five grades which include strongly agreed, agreed, not agreed, disagreed and strongly disagreed. As a result, the mean score of total satisfaction was 59.7%.

The finding of this assessment is displayed in Table 4. As shown in the table, major segment of study participants rated the structural aspect of the hospital (physical facilities, and medical equipments) negatively (not agreed, disagreed, or strongly disagreed). Except for laboratory cost, the process aspects which were related to services rendered by different categories of health professionals were rated positively (strongly agreed or agreed).

The overall level of patients’ satisfaction was categorized into two categories: satisfied and unsatisfied. The

highest overall score of satisfaction was registered for pharmacy services (86.15%) and the lowest score was attained by patient registration services (Table 5).