Quality of services in health centers in western suburbs of Ahvaz by examining the gap between expectations and perceptions

Due to health sector’s serious mission in maintaining the health and care of the community, the quality of provided health services has a particular importance. The aim of this study is to assess the quality of services in health centers in suburbs of West Ahvaz by examining the gap between expectations and perceptions.

This study was a descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study that was conducted in 2018 on 291 clients of health centers in the suburbs of West Ahvaz. The data were collected through SERVQUAL standard questionnaire for assessing the quality. Pearson correlation coefficient test was used to investigate the relationship between the variables. Independent t-test was used to compare the means. Data analysis was performed through SPSS22 software.

89.55% the subjects were female and 10.45% were male. In all five dimensions of quality, there was a significant difference between the ideal status and the observed status (p-value <0.001). the lowest gap was related to empathy (r=0.25) and the highest gap was reported for tangible factors (r=-0.99). There was a direct and significant relationship between each of the dimensions of expectations and same dimension in the perceptions section (p-value <0.001). 

Expectations in all dimensions, except for empathy, were higher than perceptions, and health centers were far from ideal. Among these dimensions, expectations and perceptions in the area of reliability were higher than other cases and the mean scores were at a higher level. In the area of increasing the quality of care in health centers in the suburbs of Ahvaz, some measures should be taken to increase the quality.