Patient satisfaction based on concordance in demographic factors between anesthesiologist and patient

Background The impact of demographic concordance between patient and anesthesiologist on patient satisfaction is unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between satisfaction with anesthesia care and patient-anesthesiologist demographic concordance.Methods We conducted a retrospective study of select patient responses to the 24-question Anesthesiologist Patient Safety Questionnaire from June 2023 through December 2024 at a large U.S. anesthesia practice. We examined the relationship between age, sex, and race/ethnicity concordance and patient satisfaction. Multivariable generalized linear models with adjustment for prespecified covariates and with random effects for medical facility and anesthesiologist were used to assess the relationship between demographic concordance and the likelihood of the highest possible score on the question, "Please rate your anesthesiologist,". In a prespecified subgroup analysis, the relationship between demographic concordance and satisfaction with obstetric care was investigated in a similar fashion. A p-value below 0.05 was considered significant.Results A total of 655,849 patient satisfaction surveys were returned (18.3% response rate), and 236,301 surveys from solo anesthesiologist cases were analyzed. Patients were more likely to rate their anesthesiologist highly if they were age-concordant (Odds Ratio (OR) 1.09, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) 1.04 to 1.14, p = 0.001) and sex-concordant (OR 1.05, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.08, p = 0.012). Race/ethnicity concordance was not associated with differences in satisfaction. Among our 19,081-patient obstetric cohort, we found no correlation between age concordance and patient satisfaction but did find that race/ethnicity concordance correlated positively and sex concordance correlated negatively with labor epidural satisfaction.Conclusions We found modest differences in patient satisfaction based on patient-anesthesiologist demographic concordance. Future studies are needed to understand the causes and implications of these findings.