The quality of health care services provided in health care centers of Khorramabad using SERVQUAL model in 2010

In order to offer better services in health care centers, awareness of perception and expectations of services recipients in these centers, and determination of existing gap between these two components, have a substantial role. This study was performed to assess the quality of health care services provided in health care centers of Khorramabad city using SERVQUAL model in 2010. In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 650 clients of health care centers of Khorramabad city were selected by stratified and random sampling method. The standard SERVQUAL questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analyzed by SPSS 16 using descriptive statistics and Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis tests and Spearman correlation coefficient. In all 5 dimensions of offering services (including tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy), negative quality gaps were observed. The highest quality gap average was in empathy dimension and the lowest quality gap average was in reliability dimension. Between age of clients and quality gap score, reverse association was observed (P=0.026). There was no statistically significant relationship between the quality gap with sex and education level of clients. Expectations of the clients in all aspects of offering services are beyond than their perceptions, and needed to improve the quality of offering services in these centers in all the dimensions especially empathy dimension. It is recommended that the quality of the offering services be assessed periodically in these centers and intervene to improve the delivering of health services.