Differences In Perceived Quality Research Articles

Self-reported physical health, mental health, and comorbid diseases among women with irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, or both compared with healthy control respondents.

Physicians often encounter patients with functional pain disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), fibromyalgia (FM), and their co-occurrence. Although these diseases are diagnosed exclusively by patients' report of symptoms, there are few comparative studies about patients' perceptions of these diseases. To compare perceptions of these conditions among 4 groups-3 clinical groups of older women with IBS, FM, or both disorders (IBS plus FM) and 1 similarly aged control group of women with no IBS or FM-using their responses to survey questions about stressful life events, general physical and mental health, and general medical, pain, and psychiatric comorbidities. Using data from the Biopsychosocial Religion and Health Study survey, responses from women were compared regarding a number of variables. To compare stress-related and physical-mental health profiles across the 4 groups, 1-way analyses of variance and χ(2) tests (with Tukey-Kramer and Tukey post hoc tests, respectively) were used, with α set to .05. The present study comprised 3811 women. Participants in the control group, the IBS group, the FM group, and the IBS plus FM group numbered 3213 (84.3%), 366 (9.6%), 161 (4.2%), and 71 (1.9%), respectively, with a mean (standard deviation) age of 62.4 (13.6), 64.9 (13.7), 63.2 (10.8), and 61.1 (10.9) years, respectively. In general, participants in the control group reported fewer lifetime traumatic and major life stressors, better physical and mental health, and fewer comorbidities than respondents in the 3 clinical groups, and these differences were both statistically significant and substantial. Respondents with IBS reported fewer traumatic and major life stressors and better health (ratings and comorbidity data) than respondents with FM or respondents with IBS plus FM. Overall, respondents with both diseases reported the worst stressors and physical-mental health profiles and reported more diagnosed medical, pain, and psychiatric comorbidities. The results revealed statistically significant, relatively large differences in perceptions of quality of life measures and health profiles among the respondents in the control group and the 3 clinical groups.

Diffusion of green supply chain management

PurposeExtant research has yielded conflicting results regarding the relationship between adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices and competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to further investigate this relationship by examining the case of green reverse logistics (GRL).Design/methodology/approachThrough the lens of diffusion of innovation and resource‐advantage theory, the authors examine whether or not consumers perceive products made via GRL practices to be equivalent to brand‐new products in terms of quality. A survey method is used to gather data from a diverse sample of 533 participants. Data are analyzed via ANOVA to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe findings suggest that consumers perceive products made via some GRL practices to be inferior to brand‐new products in terms of quality. However, participants indicated no perceived quality difference between products made with recycled materials and brand‐new products.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings suggest that adoption of some GSCM practices may not necessarily lead to competitive advantage, which may inhibit diffusion of GSCM. This study is limited by its focus on just one aspect of competitive advantage. Future studies should examine the relationship between GSCM adoption and other measures of competitive advantage.Practical implicationsUnderstanding that consumers may perceive products made via some GRL activities as being inferior in quality to brand‐new products, firms wishing to employ GRL may wish to compete on other dimensions, such as low price or service.Originality/valueThis research corroborates previous research findings that suggest adoption of GSCM may not lead directly to competitive advantage. Future research is suggested to continue to build this body of literature.

Perceived quality of public services, liquidity constraints, and the demand of private specialist care

In this article we offer direct evidence on the role of perceived quality differences in publicly provided health care services, in determining the incentive to opt out for private services and, for poor individuals, short-run credit constraints in the access to these services. We concentrate on private specialist care, a category of services for which disparities in the access are highest. We use Bank of Italy—SHIW data to first study the determinants of demand for private and public specialist care, estimating probit and bivariate probit models, and ZIP models. We then apply the Carneiro–Heckman procedure to identify the share of people constrained and study how perceived quality of public services affects the percentage of people short run constrained. Our estimates suggest the presence of large territorial differences, as for the role of income and the quality of public services.

Assessing Cultural Perspectives on Healthcare Quality

This study explores cultural differences in perceptions of quality of care and examines whether existing surveys, such as the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS(®)) questionnaires, adequately capture conceptions of healthcare quality among members of racial/ethnic minority groups. Eight focus groups with African Americans, Asian Indians, Latinos, and whites were organized into two 45-minute segments. In one segment, participants rated the quality of care depicted in a video; in the other they discussed the concept of "healthcare quality." We found that members of racial/ethnic minority groups are more likely than whites to identify cultural competency and providing a holistic approach to care as important to healthcare quality. Neither of these concepts is currently included in the core CAHPS(®) questionnaire. The CAHPS(®) and other quality surveys may not accurately capture concepts of healthcare quality that members of racial/ethnic minority groups deem most important.

The disparity of frontline clinical staff and managers' perceptions of a quality and patient safety initiative

Arguably, a shared perspective between managers and their clinical staff on an improvement initiative would allow for most effective implementation and increase programme success. However, it has been reported that research has failed to differentiate between managers and line employees on quality management implementation and examine their differences in perceptions of quality and safety initiatives. The aim of this study was to compare clinical frontline staff and senior managers' perceptions on the importance of an organization-wide quality and safety collaborative: the Safer Patients Initiative (SPI). A quantitative study obtained 635 surveys at 20 trusts participating in SPI. Participants included the teams and frontline staff involved within the programme at each organization. Independent T-tests were carried out between frontline staff and senior managers' perceptions of SPI programme elements, success factors and impact & sustainability. Statistically significant differences were found between the perceptions of frontline staff and senior managers on a wide number of issues, including the frontline perceiving a significantly larger improvement on the timeliness of care delivery (t = 2.943, P = 0.004), while managers perceived larger improvement on the culture within the organization for safe, effective and reliable care (t = -2.454, P = 0.014). This study has identified statistically significant disparities in perceptions of an organization-wide improvement initiative between frontline staff and senior managers. This holds valuable implications for the importance of getting both frontline and management perspectives when designing such interventions, in monitoring their performance, and in evaluating their impact.

Age-Related Differences in Perception of Quality of Discharge Teaching and Readiness for Hospital Discharge

Adults aged 65 and older account for one third of all hospitalizations in the United States.(1) Almost one fifth (19.6%) of Medicare beneficiaries discharged from an acute care hospital are readmitted within 30 days.(2) High readmission rates have been attributed to inadequate discharge preparation, lack of patient and family caregiver readiness, poor discharge transition coordination, and unsuccessful coping with the demands of daily living.(3-9) Discharge needs may be different for older adults than for the general population because of the increased likelihood of multiple comorbidities, illness-induced limitations, impaired mobility, fatigue, anxiety, cognitive impairment, hearing impairments, health literacy deficits, and living alone.(7,8,10-12) The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in perceptions of the quality of discharge teaching and readiness for hospital discharge and their relationship to postdischarge utilization of emergency department (ED) visits and readmissions across the older adult age spectrum. Of particular interest is the applicability of quality of discharge teaching and discharge readiness assessment tools for the older adult population.

Examining student satisfaction with higher education services

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate how students perceive the services they are offered at a German university and how satisfied they are with them.Design/methodology/approachAn evaluation study using a new tool to measure 15 dimensions of student satisfaction at an institutional level that covers most aspects of student life was used. It was decided to develop a new measurement tool as many existing surveys are poorly designed, lack standardization and give no evidence concerning reliability or validity. Questionnaires were handed out in eight lectures for the pilot study and 18 lectures for the main study. The response rate was 99 percent. A total of 374 students (pilot study) and 544 students (main study) filled in the newly developed questionnaires using Likert scales.FindingsThe study gave a valuable insight into how students perceive the quality of the services offered at a university and how satisfied they are with these offerings. The results show that students' satisfaction with their university is based on a relatively stable person‐environment relationship. Thus, the satisfaction of students seems to reflect quite well perceived quality differences of offered services and of the wider environment. Students were particularly satisfied with the school placements and the atmosphere among students. Students were mostly dissatisfied with the university buildings and the quality of the lecture theatres.Research limitations/implicationsAs the study involved only two samples of students from one university, the results cannot be generalized to the German student population as a whole.Originality/valueThe study was the first to successfully apply a measurement tool, which has previously not been used. The study has hopefully opened up an area of research and methodology that could provide considerable further benefits for researchers interested in this topic. It also shows how the concept of student satisfaction could be assessed in future studies.

Quality of talking heads in different interaction and media contexts

We investigate the impact of three different factors on the quality of talking heads as metaphors of a spoken dialogue system in the smart home domain. The main focus lies on the effect of voice and head characteristics on audio and video quality, as well as overall quality. Furthermore, the influence of interactivity and of media context on user perception is analysed. For this purpose two subsequent experiments were conducted: the first was designed as a non-interactive rating test of videos of talking heads, while the second experiment was interactive. Here, the participants had to solve a number of tasks in dialogue with a talking head. To assess the impact of the media context, redundant information was provided via an additional visual output channel to half of the participants. As a secondary effect, the importance of participants’ gender is examined. It is shown that perceived quality differences observed in the non-interactive setting are blurred when the interactivity and media contexts provide distraction from the talking head. Furthermore, a simple additional feed-back screen improves the perceived quality of the talking heads. Gender effects are negligible concerning the ratings in interaction, but female and male participants exhibit different behaviour in the experiment. This advocates for more realistic evaluation settings in order to increase the external validity of the obtained quality judgements.

Perceived Quality of Life: Towards A Generic Measure in Nigerian Culture

This study was designed to develop and validate a generic perceived quality of life measure for Nigerian culture so as to ensure culture relevance and validity of the concept of quality of life. One hundred and twenty-two (122) randomly selected respondents with ages ranging from 18-60 years old, a mean age of 28.7 and standard deviation of 9.9 took part in the study. The sample was drawn from Lagos, the former capital of Nigeria and, Ibadan, the capital of 4o State. Results show that the measure has content validity (using 80% agreements of experts). Reliability coefficient alpha is .87 while standardized item alpha is .87 with correlation between forms of .68. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) brought out seven factors; contentment, relationship, social support, self-competence, self-health perception, environmental relationship and recreation. It was thus concluded that this scale is a valid measure of perceived quality of life among Nigerians. It also suggested that the study can be improved upon to investigate multi-ethnic differences in perception of quality of lift.

How Consumers Choose Between Equated Alternatives

This research investigates how consumers choose between options when prices offset perceived quality differences. We suggest that consumers choose between equated alternatives by first assessing which option is of higher quality, and then relying on their confidence in this assessment to determine how much weight to give to equating prices: The lower the confidence in their quality assessments, the more weight they give to equating prices, and the more likely they are to choose a lower-priced option against an equally attractive but higher-quality alternative. In five studies, we manipulated consumers’ confidence in their quality assessments and then asked them to choose between equated alternatives. As predicted, consumers were more likely to choose the higher-quality option against an equated alternative when they were more confident in their quality assessments. This occurred even when confidence was manipulated without altering the choice options themselves (e.g., by degrading the font of the questionnaire).

Quality of Care and Quality of Life: Patient/Healthcare Perspectives

Background: Patients with CF need attention, financial resources and energy for their daily, time consuming therapies to maintain an optimal health status. Our goal as healthcare providers (HP) is to offer the best care. This results in a heavy burden for the patients which impairs the quality of life (QoL) and may lead to poor adherence. The ultimate goal should be to propose a true balance between quality of care (QoC) and QoL. The QoC in CF is measured by outcome variables that include morbidity, mortality, FEV1 and BMI. Over the last decade, the patient’s perspective on QoL was included as well. Patients grade the effect of the disease on their daily life, and include their subjective assessment of respiratory status, physical activity, eating, body image, social status and the emotional effects of CF. Aim: To investigate the differences in perception of quality of life and quality of care between HP and patients/parents in our CF center. Method: QoL and QoC were assessed by an anonymous questionnaire that included 46 questions, completed by 13 HP, 24 patients >18 years and 29 parents of children <18 years. Results: No significant differences between the perceptions of HP and the patients on QoC were detected. Significant differences were observed in QoL, i.e., subjective perception, daily activities, treatment burden and coping. Despite the original assumption that patients perceived their QoL much lower than expected by the HP, this study showed the opposite. Conclusions: Patients and parents perceive the chronic illness in a “healthier” light than the medical staff. Therefore healthcare providers should take the patient’s perception into consideration and recommend the best care when developing treatment regimens.

CONSUMER’S ORIENTED DENTAL SERVICE QUALITY ASSESSMENT USING THE SERVQUAL MODEL

Consumers oriented quality in dental health services has become more important in the era of free competition. Perceived quality by the community has been closely related with their previous experience level of satisfaction on the quality of services they received. The information on the perceived quality of dental services in Indonesia has been scarce. One of the reasons is lack of standardized method in measuring the consumer’s perspective on dental quality. Using the Service Quality (Servqual) model cross-sectionally, this study is to investigate differences in patterns on perceived quality of different groups of Puskesmas (government owned) and Syahid clinic (private owner) consumers. The analysis of Servqual Kartesius diagram was carried out to assess the quality of service, based on various criteria namely Dimesntions of Physical Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy. Results showed differences in quality perception likely due to differences in level of education and income. It was concluded that the Servqual model has been adequately practical for assessing quality dental services based on level of consumer’s satisfaction and degree of importance as measured from the consumer’s perspective. Eventuallym the results of Servqual measurements can be used as guidance for quality improvements of dental services, based different characteristics of consumers.

Patient perceptions of multiple sclerosis-related care: Comparisons by practice specialty of principal care physician

Do people with multiple sclerosis who receive the majority of their care from neurologists perceive access to and quality of their care differently than people receiving their care from medical internists, family/general practitioners, and other types of physicians? The objective of this study is to identify any patient-identified differences in MS-related care by the practice specialty of the principal care physician, as well as differences by practice specialty in satisfaction with access to physician services and differences in patient perceptions of quality. Data were collected by surveying 1,518 people with MS throughout the United States and grouped by practice specialty of principal care physician (neurologist, internal medicine, family/general practice, and other physicians). Significant differences were observed by practice specialty of the principal care physician in physician understanding of various aspects of MS, satisfaction with access to MS-focused care, and quality of MS-focused care, with neurologists associated with better patient perceptions. Patients consider MS-related care superior when it is delivered by neurologists compared to MS patients receiving care from medical internists, family/general practitioners, and other physicians.

The Spanish retail petroleum market: New patterns of competition since the liberalization of the industry

In this paper, we study the recent development of the Spanish automotive fuels market, in the context of a long process of liberalization and competition. Our aims are twofold. First, to overview the market's current patterns of competition, while taking into account the political, structural and strategic aspects that have marked the industry's recent evolution. Second, to study in depth one competitive strategy that nowadays significantly influences competition and final prices, the vertical relationships between operators and service stations. Our analysis draws attention to several indicators that may demonstrate the success of the opening and liberalization process. Increased levels of competition have stimulated the sector's growth, development and modernization, and given national firms an excellent platform for competing with newcomers. Furthermore, studying the vertical agreements has produced interesting results. We have found that relative price differences among brands increase in line with perceived quality differences, and that the vertical separation of refineries and retailers eases price competition in the final market. The empirical evidence was backed up with a database of 4164 Spanish service stations.

Commentary: What Is the Right Price of Health Insurance? A Rejoinder

In his commentary on our article “The Role of Product Design in Consumers' Choices in the Individual Insurance Market,” Dr. Feldman asserts that our analysis of decisions to elect insurance may be biased by our use of a premium price adjusted for the actuarial value1—which he characterizes as price adjusted for quality (Feldman 2007; Marquis et al. 2007). We respectfully disagree for three reasons. We adjusted the premium prices by dividing them by the actuarial value of the policy. This produces a set of relative prices that would be paid if all policies provided the same quantity of financial protection. The premium price divided by the actuarial value measures 1+ the load on the policy. This is the classic textbook version of the price of 1 unit or dollar of insurance (Pauly 1997; Phelps 1997; Feldstein 1999; Chernew and Hirth 2002; Blumberg and Nichols 2004). The load also measures the amount the consumer must pay to transform the uncertain costs if uninsured into certain costs, which is called the risk premium. Our measure is the risk premium for the specific subscriber because the actuarial adjustment is specific to the age and health of the subscriber. The load or risk premium (or a proxy for it such as a tax rate) has been used as the price measure in other works on the demand for insurance (e.g., Phelps 1973; Taylor and Wilensky 1983; Gruber and Poterba 1994; Royalty 2000). The second reason we disagree with Dr. Feldman's analysis of our specification is that we do not see our price measure as one that adjusts for the quality of the policy. Insurance policies do differ in ways other than the quantity of financial protection, and we have accounted for quality variation in part by using a nested model. The nests, which distinguish HMO from PPO plans and different insurance carriers, reflect perceived quality differences. Benefit features may also reflect specific plan attributes related to quality and we control for these as well in our model. These other attributes include the deductible level and coverage of specific services such as mental health care.2,3 Third, as we report in the paper, our results were largely unchanged when we use the unadjusted premium price as Dr. Feldman prefers. Thus, our empirical work is not sensitive to the price specification. We agree with Dr. Feldman that this might not always be the case, and that future researchers should continue to explore the sensitivity of results to the price specification. Moreover, we agree that Dr. Feldman presents a model that is consistent with consumer utility and it is one that that future researchers in this area would do well to consider. Researchers considering how to specify health insurance price might do well to also read the excellent discussion of the subject in Chernew and Hirth (2002), in which they point out that “defining and measuring price is not straightforward.” In our application we continue to believe that the adjusted premium, reflecting the loading fee and controlling for the quantity of insurance, is the correct price to enter into our purchase equation.

Cross-Cultural Differences of Price-Perceived Quality Relationships

To determine whether prices cause different levels of perceived quality, the authors survey consumers from two countries (Australia and Japan) that differ greatly in their cultural values. The findings show dramatic differences in the price-perceived quality relationships between the two countries: Varying prices of unbranded tourism packages cause much greater corresponding perceived quality differences for Japanese consumers than for Australian consumers. Japanese consumers perceive much higher quality for high prices and much lower quality for low prices, whereas Australian consumers demonstrate no corresponding changes in perceived quality but instead perceive higher quality for a moderately lowered price and lower quality for increased prices. The authors discuss implications for international pricing and price promotion strategies and the product categories to which such strategies should be targeted.

Airline choice, switching costs and frequent flyer programmes

Switching costs are costs that customers face when switching from one firm to another. In markets such as the airline market where repeated purchases are common, switching costs may be substantial. In this paper, the switching costs are estimated for domestic airline routes in Sweden between 1992 and 2002. In addition, the determinants of these switching costs are tested for; in particular, to what extent factors such as frequent flyer programmes and flag carriers have an effect on switching costs. A substantial switching cost is found. Although a large part of this calculated switching cost can be attributed to perceived quality differences, it is also found that frequent flyer programmes contribute a non-negligible part of the switching cost. The paper ends with a brief discussion on the welfare consequences of switching costs, where the connection between habit formation and switching costs is discussed.

Quality of life in chronic illness: perceptions of parents and paediatricians

Aims: To investigate the differences in perception of quality of life between parents of chronically ill children and paediatricians at diagnosis and follow up. Quality of life was assessed using...

A difference in perception of quality of life in chronically ill children was found between parents and pediatricians

Background and Objectives Quality of life measurements can help to estimate the well-being of chronically ill patients, and disclose discrepancies in perception between physicians and patients that might otherwise interfere with the effectiveness of treatment. The objective was to investigate the differences in perception of quality of life between parents of chronically ill children and pediatricians. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in four tertiary pediatric care centers in The Netherlands. The Health Utilities Index mark 3 (HUI3) was used by 37 pediatricians and 279 parents of patients (children aged 1 to 17 years) with cystic fibrosis admitted either in daycare or for a pneumonia, or patients with newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, or asthma. Results Differences in perception of quality of life between parents and pediatricians appeared to be dependent of the disease. In patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (OR 7.4; [95% CI 2.88–18.97], juvenile idiopathic arthritis (4.7; [95% CI 2.00–11.22]), and asthma (2.3; [95% CI 1.13–4.69]) a difference in perception was more likely to occur than in patients with cystic fibrosis admitted in daycare. Conclusion At the onset of a chronic disease, the parents of pediatric patients may be misunderstood by health care professionals, especially in subjective attributes. Assessment of quality of life may contribute to better understanding between pediatricians and parents, and thus may even enhance compliance and treatment effects.

Comparing the effectiveness of fixed and discounted prices in the US and South Korea

Building on research that has studied cultural differences between South Korea and the USA, the authors' conceptualization suggests that products associated with fixed and discounted price formats would be evaluated differently in these two countries. The differences in product evaluations were expected to lead to differences in perceptions of quality, monetary sacrifice and value of offers between the two pricing formats. These predictions were tested using laboratory experiments conducted in South Korea and the USA. Results showed that Korean subjects’ evaluated a product that was discounted in price to be superior in quality and value and lower in monetary sacrifice than when it was the full price. The US subjects however, reacted in an opposite manner and evaluated products with discounted prices as inferior in quality and value in comparison to a fixed price. These findings were robust across two discount conditions (15 percent and 20 percent off).