QUALITY GAP IN PRIMARY HEALTH CARE IN URMIA HEALTH CARE CENTERS, 2009

According to modern approaches to management, satisfactory quality must meet consumer’s requests. One of the first basic steps in improvement quality is recognizing consumer's perceptions and expectation. The aim of this study was to determine the quality gap in primary health care services in Urmia health care centers following consumer's perceptions and expectations. This analytic-descriptive study (cross-sectional) covered 400 females that referred to Urmia health care centers; the study population was selected with systematic random method. Data were gathered using a research questionnaire. It was indicated that there was a quality gap in all dimensions. Overall quality gap is (-0.61) and the largest gap was in reliability dimension (-0.78) and the smallest gap was observed in tangibility dimension (-0.23). There was no significant relation between age and education level of consumers with quality gap (P>0.05). The results of this study show that there is a negative gap in most quality dimensions of Urmia health system and consumer's expectations are not granted.