%0 Journal Article
%T Service quality of private hospitals: The Iranian Patients' perspective
%A Asghar Zarei
%A Mohammad Arab
%A Abbas Rahimi Froushani
%A Arash Rashidian
%A S Mahmoud Ghazi Tabatabaei
%J BMC Health Services Research
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1472-6963-12-31
%X A cross-sectional study was conducted between October and November 2010 in Tehran, Iran. The study sample was composed of 983 patients randomly selected from 8 private general hospitals. The study questionnaire was the SERVQUAL questionnaire, consisting of 21 items in service quality dimensions.The result of factor analysis revealed 3 factors, explaining 69% of the total variance. The total mean score of patients' expectation and perception was 4.91(SD = 0.2) and 4.02(SD = 0.6), respectively. The highest expectation and perception related to the tangibles dimension and the lowest expectation and perception related to the empathy dimension. The differences between perception and expectation were significant (p < 0.001). There was a significant difference between the expectations scores based on gender, education level, and previous hospitalization in that same hospital. Also, there was a significant difference between the perception scores based on insurance coverage, average length of stay, and patients' health conditions on discharge.The results showed that SERVQUAL is a valid, reliable, and flexible instrument to monitor and measure the quality of the services in private hospitals of Iran. Our findings clarified the importance of creating a strong relationship between patients and the hospital practitioners/personnel and the need for hospital staff to be responsive, credible, and empathetic when dealing with patients.Service sector is the rapidly growing area of the world economy and the health services organizations play an important role in such growth [1,2]. During the recent decade, the number of private centers providing health care services in Iran has been ever increasingly growing, and the private health care services market has turned out to be a competitive environment. Based on the statistics issued by the Ministry of Health of Iran (2009), 54 (40%) of 134 private hospitals active in the health sector of Iran and possessing 48% of the hospital beds of t
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/12/31