Responsiveness of the Health System in Outpatient Services in Low and High Income Areas of Mashhad

Outpatient services are a significant part of the health care delivery system. Dominance of the non-governmental sector in delivery of these services along with the government stewardship role in health system indicates the importance of monitoring the non-clinical aspects of quality in the outpatient services. The aim of this study was to evaluate the Responsiveness of the health system in the sector of outpatient services for households living in selected areas in Mashhad.
This descriptive-applied study was performed as a cross sectional in 2014. The sample size included 1000 households that selected by multistage sampling from low and high income areas of Mashhad. Data was collected by WHO questionnaire which had three parts and its validity and reliability were assessed and approved. Data were analyzed by Descriptive and inferential statistics in SPSS.
The findings generally showed that more than 60 percent of the responders, expressed outpatient services responsiveness as good. The aspects of confidentiality and the quality of the amenities, acquired the highest and lowest level from the respondents view, respectively. The level of responsiveness from the view of residents in the high income area has been reported higher than the low income area.
Quality of health services should be a goal that can be achieved with a good stewardship in the health system. Since most institutions that providing outpatient services are outside of the Ministry of Health as a stewardship of health system of Iran, establishing the appropriate mechanisms to monitor of this goal seems necessary.