Analysis of Service Quality Gap between Perceptions and Expectations of Service Recipients using SERVQUAL Approach in Selected Hospitals in Golestan Province

Background and purpose: Services quality is an important factor of satisfaction, as well as a remarkable tool for marketing to achieve the competitive differentiation and promotion of customer's loyalty. The present study was aimed to analyze the quality gap using SERVQUAL approach at selected hospitals in Golestan Province at the year 2015. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 361 patients of selected hospitals of Golestan Province. To determine sample size, Cochran's sample size formula was utilized. Also, to collect the data, SERVQUAL questionnaire was used. The collected data was analyzed through SPSS Software (version 18), and running statistical tests including paired t-test and Pearson correlation. The level of significance was also considered to be &le; 0.05. Results: The most expectation of hospital services quality was related to reliability dimension (31.60 &plusmn; 4.00), while the lowest perception was about responsiveness aspect (13.36 &plusmn; 5.74). The greatest gap between perceptions and expectances was in the reliability dimension (-4.54), which was significant (P<0.001). In terms of responsiveness dimension, there was a significant correlation between perceptions and expectances (r = 0.174, P&le;0.001). Conclusions: The largest gap between perceptions and expectances was about reliability and tangibles dimensions that can likely be reduced by the staff appearance, physical environment, and utilization of suitable equipment and assurance to patients.