en Food Safety and Hygiene Food Safety and Hygiene پژوهشي Original Article <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><strong>Background:</strong> Nutritional satisfaction is essential to the reduction of hospital costs given the faster recovery of patients. Food satisfaction may be influenced by self-operating or contractor food service management. This descriptive study was aimed to assess patient satisfaction with the dinner served in two hospitals of Tabriz, Iran by contractors and a self-operating system in 214 participants during April-May 2014.<br> <strong>Methods:</strong> Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire with 20 items on demographic and food satisfaction data. Data analysis was performed in SPSS, and the intragroup and intergroup differences were evaluated and compared at the significant <em>P</em>-value of less than 0.05.<br> <strong>Results:</strong> Overall food satisfaction was significantly higher in hospital A (contractor-supported food service) compared to hospital B (self-operating food service) (<em>P </em>< 0.001). In addition, a negative correlation was observed between food satisfaction and the literacy level of the subjects. Having a companion also reduced the satisfaction score of the patients.<br> Conclusion: Our findings could provide useful information for the legislation of new policies to increase the food satisfaction of inpatients and exploit its advantages, while contributing to the decision-making regarding the choice of financial support for hospital food services.</span></span></div> Food satisfaction, Self-operating food service, Contracting food service 54 59 http://jhehp.zums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-408-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Ahmadreza Rasouli ahmadrasoulinut@yahoo.com 100319475328460011149 100319475328460011149 No Department of Nutrition, School of Health, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran. Vida Ebrahimi ebrahimivida@yahoo.com 100319475328460011150 100319475328460011150 No Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Hamidreza Hamedi Behtash hamidrezahamedi.hh@gmail.com 100319475328460011151 100319475328460011151 No Nutrition Research Center, Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran. Asieh Panjeshahin asieh.shahin@yahoo.com 100319475328460011152 100319475328460011152 No Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health, Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. Morteza Kazemi mrt.deist1414@gmail.com 100319475328460011153 100319475328460011153 No Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran. Ali Tarighat-Esfanjani tarighata@tbzmed.ac.ir 100319475328460011154 100319475328460011154 Yes Nutrition Research Center, Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.