Outpatient Waiting Time and Its Association With Patient Satisfaction and Willingness to Revisit a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital in Jharkhand: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background Outpatient waiting is an important part of the patient experience and may influence satisfaction and continued use of health services. In high-volume tertiary hospitals, delays at successive service points can accumulate before clinical care begins. This study assessed waiting and consultation-time patterns, associated factors, patient satisfaction, and willingness to revisit a tertiary care teaching hospital in Jharkhand, India. Methods This observational cross-sectional study included 400 adults attending eight outpatient departments (OPDs) through convenience sampling. Registration waiting time, pre-consultation waiting time, doctor consultation duration, and total waiting time from registration to the start of consultation were reported using predefined ordered categories in a bilingual questionnaire. Patient characteristics, visit type, arrival time, satisfaction, perceived reason for waiting, and willingness to revisit were also recorded. Data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, Pearson's chi-square test, Cramér's V, and Spearman's rank correlation. A multivariable ordinal logistic regression model was used to assess whether total waiting time independently predicted poorer overall satisfaction. Monte Carlo significance estimates were used where small expected frequencies limited the suitability of asymptotic chi-square estimates. The Benjamini-Hochberg procedure was used to control the false discovery rate for exploratory department-stratified analyses. Results Among 400 participants, 193 (48.3%) were male participants and 207 (51.8%) were female participants. Registration waiting exceeded 60 minutes for 104 (26.0%) participants, while 119 (29.8%) waited more than 60 minutes before consultation. Most consultations, 323 (80.8%), lasted 30 minutes or less. Total waiting exceeded three hours for 233 (58.3%) participants. Total waiting time was significantly associated with visit type (χ²(3) = 51.096, p < 0.001; Cramér's V = 0.357) and arrival time (χ²(9) = 179.485, p < 0.001; Cramér's V = 0.387), but not with department. Longer registration, pre-consultation, and total waiting times were strongly associated with poorer corresponding satisfaction (Spearman's ρ = 0.879, 0.871, and 0.816, respectively; all p < 0.001). Longer consultation duration was associated with better consultation satisfaction (ρ = -0.668, p < 0.001). After adjustment, each one-category increase in total waiting time was associated with higher odds of worse overall satisfaction (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 22.75, 95% CI: 13.68-37.83; p < 0.001). Total waiting time was strongly associated with willingness to revisit (χ²(6) = 249.166, p < 0.001; Cramér's V = 0.558). Conclusions Prolonged outpatient waiting was common and was closely associated with poorer satisfaction and lower willingness to revisit. Visit type and arrival time appeared more relevant to total waiting than the demographic characteristics examined. Efforts to improve outpatient flow should focus on reducing avoidable registration and queue delays while preserving adequate doctor-patient consultation time.