Evaluating Service Quality of Hospitals of Bushehr University of Medical Sciences from Patient's Perceptions

The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the service quality in hospitals of Bushehr University of Medical Sciences according to Parasuraman definition of service quality (tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, reliability and empathy) and two extra dimensions(pharmaceutical management and paraclinical services). This is an applied research in terms of purpose and a descriptive-analytical study in methodology following a cross-sectional approach. The statistical population of the study includes patients and visitors to the hospitals of Bushehr Province and 450 subjects were selected as samples. SERVQUAL was used for data collection and paired t test and Friedman test were used for data analysis. Research results at a confidence level of %95 show that visitor's expectations are beyond the hospital performance in all seven aspects. In other words, there is a gap in healthcare service quality of all seven aspects. The highest gap is related to assurance and the least gap is related to pharmaceutical management. Results indicate that visitors are not satisfied enough with any of the quality aspects. Research findings show that the managers of the hospitals in Bushehr Province need to be aware of the fact that the performance of the hospitals in all seven aspects and in visitor's idea in general, is inferior to their expectations. The average of expectations and average of perceptions are 3.92 and 3.07, respectively which indicate a gap between patient's perception and expectations from hospital services. The patient's expectations were beyond the performance of the hospitals in all aspects, that is, tangibles, assurance, empathy, reliability, responsiveness, pharmaceutical management and paraclinical services. The negative scores of services quality is a sign of the need to improve all service quality aspects in the hospitals. Accordingly, it is recommended that managers dedicate more attention to patient needs and presenting desirable services to reduce the gap in the quality and spend financial resources on improving the performance in areas that have more effect on the patient's perception of service quality.