The importance of patient satisfaction as one indicator of quality care in the hospital is undisputed. This article discusses the findings of a survey on patient satisfaction that was conducted in patients with mainly gastrointestinal diseases. The aim was to find out whether the questionnaire is sensitive enough to discern levels of care in order to indicate which aspects of hospital care require improvement. The questionnaire comprised 63 items and measured satisfaction with 4 specific dimensions of hospital care, namely physician services, nursing care, food/accommodation and administration/organisation of daily activity, and two questions for open-ended responses. 319 questionnaires were distributed which the patients should deposit anonymously on the ward on the day of discharge. The response rate was 60.5%. 53.3% were completely filled in and could be analysed. The results show typically high levels of satisfaction with the core performances in hospital namely medical and nursing care. On the other hand the data clearly revealed detailed criticism about certain aspects of care. The four-dimensional questionnaire proved to be a useful and economically reasonable way to obtain a considerable amount of information on quality of care from the patient's perspective. The problem of losing precious information because of standardized answer categories can be met partly by providing the possibility of positive and negative remarks in open-ended questions. Despite several shortcomings of the method (i. e. social desirability) it can be used as a starting point for improvement in the clinical setting.