Patients’ Views on Service Quality in Selected Iranian Hospitals: An Importance-Performance Analysis

One of the basic steps to quality improvement in hospitals is to obtain patients’ feedback.

The aim of this study was to assess the quality of hospital services from patient’s perspective in hospitals affiliated with the Dezful University of Medical Sciences (DUMS), Dezful, Iran.

In this cross-sectional study, 400 patients were selected from six hospitals of DUMS. The data was collected using the SERVQUAL questionnaire including 22 pairs of questions (organized in two aspects of service importance and performance) in 5 dimensions of tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The importance-performance analysis (IPA) was used to determine the weaknesses of service quality and prioritizing the aspects requiring improvement.

The mean age of the patients was 38.5, 32% (n = 128) had academic degrees, 55% (n = 220) were self-employed, and 16.5% (n = 66) did not have health insurance. The average length of day was 7.8 ± 8.3 days. The mean score of the importance and performance were 4.37 ± 0.75 and 3.72 ± 0.94, respectively. The service quality gap was -0.65. Tangibility (-0.68) had the largest negative gap while the smallest gap was related to the reliability (-0.63). The gap between importance and performance was significantly negative in all attributes and dimensions (P < 0.001). The results of the IPA showed that the tangibility was located in the Q VI, reliability and assurance in the Q I, and the responsiveness and empathy in the Q III quadrants.

Quality of hospital services did not meet patients’ expectations and there is a room for improvement and obviate the gaps. Decision-makers can further use the results of the IPA to effectively allocate limited resources giving special attentions to the organizational weaknesses.