Background and objective: An important controversy at the time of studying the perceived quality is which is the best time to know the patient's opinion. The objective of this work was to find out whether this opinion is different at the time of discharge and one month later.
Patients and method: We included patients who were discharged between October 1999 and March 2000. We designed a specific opinion survey with 44 items. The survey was administered at the time of discharge. Individuals who responded to the first survey were sent the same one by e-mail 30 days after the discharge.
Results: The first survey was responded by 1,061 subjects and the second one by 485 (45.71%). Overall, answers from subjects who responded the survey in both phases showed a 65% agreement rate and a 35% disagreement rate. On the other hand, 84% of questions showed answers with a low agreement's Kappa index, while 6% had a good agreement.
Conclusion: Globally considered, the average satisfaction expressed by subjects was equivalent in the two phases of the study, yet the individual degree of satisfaction varied.