How patients perceive healthcare services: A case of Ayub Teaching Hospital, Abbottabad - Pakistan. SERV Service QUAL Quality

Abstract

A field study was conducted in Ayub Teaching Hospital in the outpatient department, to evaluate the level of service quality offered by the healthcare services with a view to identifying the relationship between service quality dimensions and overall service quality. The researchers used the SERVQUAL instrument for the purpose of assessing the quality of the service offered by the healthcare workers at the outpatient department in Ayub Teaching Hospital. A sample of 246 patients in the outpatient department participated in the questionnaire survey. Descriptive statistics were used to find out mean values and variance between actual values from perceived values. To assess the strength of model regression, the aforementioned technique was adopted. The study results showed that there exists a gap between patients' expectation and actual services offered by the healthcare workers. There were five dimensions that were assessed: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The results revealed that patients are dissatisfied with three dimensions (tangibles, reliability and assurance), but they are satisfied with the other two dimensions (responsiveness and empathy). This research adopts the marketing concept to measure the healthcare services. The SERVQUAL tool was modified as per need to meet the requirements in accordance with the nature and scope of the research. Patients' attitudes toward service quality dimensions were the concern of the research. To get a comprehensive evaluation of service quality, healthcare providers have to be considered in future research. Based on the findings of this study, Ayub Teaching Hospital's (ATH) management is in a position to recognize the patients' perceptions about the healthcare services and offer them service accordingly. Results can be used by management and government policymakers regarding healthcare to bring better and more effective services. Consequently, based on the results, new structure can be designed by adopting strategies that improve the quality of services in order to provide effective services and gain patients' satisfaction and propensity to further recommend the services of healthcare to other patients. This study investigates the healthcare quality in a small area in Pakistan. Pakistan is a developing country. Future research can adopt the SERVPREF technique, which is a more developed technique than SERVQUAL in order to measure service quality as it provides a two-factor solution for the dimensionality of health service quality.