Quality of Services in Health Centers in Western Suburbs of Ahvaz by Examining the Gap Between Expectations and Perceptions

Abstract

Background: Due to the health sector’s serious mission in maintaining the health and care of the community, the quality of provided health services is of particular prominence.
 Objectives: This study aims to assess the quality of services in health centers in western suburbs of Ahvaz by examining the gap between expectations and perceptions.
 Methods: This was a cross-sectional study and conducted in 2018. The sample size included 291 people visiting health centers in western suburbs of Ahvaz. The data were collected through the SERVQUAL standard questionnaire for assessing the quality. This questionnaire assesses five dimensions of the quality of the provided services. These five dimensions include tangible factors, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Pearson correlation coefficient test was used to investigate the relationship between the variables. Independent t-test was used to compare the means. Data analysis was performed through SPSS version 22.
 Results: Overall, 89.55% of the subjects were female. In all the five dimensions of quality, there was a significant difference between the ideal status and the observed status (P < 0.001). The lowest gap was related to empathy (r = 0.25), and the highest gap was reported for tangible factors (r = -0.99). There was a significant positive correlation between each of the dimensions of expectations and the same dimension in the perceptions section (P < 0.001).
 Conclusions: Expectations in all the dimensions, except for empathy, were higher than perceptions, and health centers were far from ideal. Among these dimensions, expectations and perceptions in the area of reliability were higher than in other cases, and the mean scores were at a higher level. In the area of increasing the quality of care in health centers in suburbs of Ahvaz, some measures should be taken to promote the quality.