Abstract:

The objective of the study is to evaluate the effect of labour strikes patient satisfaction in secondary Health Institutions in Cross River State, Nigeria. The study is cross-sectional descriptive study of 508 respondents form outpatient department, laboratory department, pharmacy department, Ante-Natal and Post-Natal clinic and ART clinic at the 7 secondary health institutions in CRS spread across 3 senatorial districts in the state between January and February 2018 using semi structured; self-administered, closed- and open-ended questionnaires that were divided into different sections each. Raw data were entered EpiData™ and exported for analysis using the SPSS software version 20. The data were cleaned and validated for use. Frequency tables were produced and associations between categorical variables were determined using chi squared test at a significance level of P<0.05.

Meanwhile, the negative effects of strikes are generally highly felt among all patients with no statistical significant difference whether employed, unemployed or retired (P>0.05). One of the effects of health workers’ strike is that strikes increase death rates and the result showed that regardless of patient’s education level, patients are fully aware that one of the effects of frequent strikes is increase in death rate (P>0.05). The result indicates that there is statistical significant difference in respondents’ responses between those without formal education, non-graduates and graduates. i.e. the higher the level of education, the higher the awareness that labour strikes affect the duty of health workers and have effect on patient’s attendance, poor healthcare performance and cause patients’ dissatisfaction (P<0.05).

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