Patients’ satisfaction with service quality of a public hospital: An evaluation study (SERVQUAL model)

Background : Implementing the healthcare reform plan in our country has forced the medical centres to pay more attention to the patients’ rights and their satisfaction. The aim of this study was to evaluate the patient's satisfaction levels and the gap between their expectations and perceptions in Shahid Rajaee Hospital in Shiraz. Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed aiming at evaluating the patient's satisfaction levels and the gap between their expectations and perceptions in Shahid Rajaee Hospital of Shiraz in 2015. In order to collect the data, 98 questionnaires were distributed among the patients using randomized sampling method; their validity and reliability were confirmed. Finally, through SPSS 20 software, we used descriptive statistics and the one-sample t-test for data analysis. Results: Results showed that amongst the patients’ perceptions, the highest mean belonged to Reliability dimension (3.50), and the lowest one to Assurance (3.23). In terms of the patient's expectations, the highest mean belonged to Reliability dimension (4.30) and the lowest one to Physical aspect (4.18). Of the 5 dimensions in this research, the largest gap between the patient’s expectations and perceptions belonged to Responsiveness, and the smallest one to Physical aspect. Conclusion: The results indicated that there was a significant difference between the patients’ expectations and perceptions, and the quality of services provided by the hospital needed further attention. It seems that it is necessary for managers and policy makers to plan for this issue and take measures to reduce these gaps in the quality and promote better health care services.