Service quality and satisfaction in healthcare sector of Pakistan — the patients’ expectations

International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance,Volume 31, Issue 6, Page 489-501, July 2018. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess the influence of patients ’ expectations from healthcare service quality on their satisfaction with nursing in public and private hospitals of Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach Data (n=456) were collected from three public sector hospitals and three private sector hospitals of Lahore, the capital of Pakistan’s most populous province. Male and female patients who have experience of both sectors were surveyed using a self-administered questionnaire developed using the original SERVQUAL approach. Data were analyzed using the statistical techniques and the Laplace criterion. Findings This paper attempts to expl ain degree of influences of five service quality constructs (empathy, responsiveness, tangibility, reliability and assurance) on Pakistani patients’ expectations from the private and public sector hospitals and thus patient satisfaction. Further, this work can offer several intuitions into the eff ect of five constructs of service quality on patients’ expectations of healthcare service quality and patient satisfaction with the service providers/nursing. The results reveal that the patient satisfaction is most strongly related to empathy in public sector and to responsiveness in private sect or. Research limitations/implications In light of the previous studies and the current research findings, the study anticipa...
Source: International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance - Category: Health Management Source Type: research