THE EFFECT OF NURSES' PERFORMANCE ON CLIENT SATISFACTION IN PRIVATE HOSPITALS OF TEHRAN PROVINCE, IRAN

Today, with increasing competition, health centers are taking steps towards client satisfaction with a tendency to strategic and systematic actions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of nurses' performance on client satisfaction in private hospitals of Tehran province, Iran, and ranking their performance indicators.

This descriptive-survey study was performed along the summer of 2021 in all the private hospitals in Tehran. The opinions of 384 patients referred to the private hospitals and 15 expert nurses were collected in Buyukozkan et al. (2011) questionnaire and paired comparison tables, and were used as the basis for analysis. In this study, we used confirmatory factor analysis to classify the performance indicators of nurses on the satisfaction of the clients and the combined approach of analytical network process to rank performance indicators. We also used Dimatel to investigate the cause-effect relationships of the satisfaction criteria of the clients.

Five performance indicators including tangible factors, responsiveness, reliability, assurance, and empathy on client satisfaction were examined. Perceived quality criterion had the highest impact and importance among client satisfaction criteria (0.995). Reliability (0.431), responsiveness (0.160), Assurance (0.148), empathy (0.131), and tangible factors (0.128) were placed in the next ranks, respectively.

Despite the similarities and differences between the opinions of expert nurses and clients, managers and nursing supervisors of private hospitals should pay attention to both sources of information (experts and clients) in making decisions about improving clients' satisfaction from the services of these centers, and by using the obtained priorities, they also should plan to strengthen and correct the irregularities.