Introduction: In Chile, an important proportion of public hospitals are teaching hospitals. The objective of this study was to determine and compare the levels of satisfaction with health care services in one teaching hospital and one non teaching hospital.
Material and method: Cross-sectional study. A survey was carried out to evaluate satisfaction with health care and the level of acceptance of medical students by hospitalized patients in urology services in Gustavo Frike Hospital (non teaching) and Carlos Van Buren (teaching), between September and November of 2009. Content validity ratios (CVR) was used as inclusion criteria for the 14 different items on the questionnaire, and it was evaluated for internal consistency. Results: 140 patients completed the questionnaire, 70 at each hospital. There was no difference in the level of satisfaction between hospitals (90% and 88.6%). With respect to the demographic variables, between the two hospitals there were differences according to age of patients, proportion of retirees, and level of education. The only variable that was associated with satisfaction was sex, found in 95% of men and 81.4% of women (p=0.01). 94.3% of patients accepted the presence of studentts at the teaching hospital. Discussion: In this sample, hospitalization in the teaching or the non teaching hospital did not affect patient satisfaction. The only variable that was associated with satisfaction was sex, and the presence of students was accepted by the majority of patients.