Service quality and patients’ satisfaction of health care delivery in Ashanti Region, Ghana – the moderating effect of demography
Date
2016-10-14
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Abstract
Service quality within hospital units is pivotal for satisfying, retaining & creating loyalty amongst patients. This research uses servqual model to analyse the gap between perceptions and expectations of the patients and doctors concerning the services of selected hospitals in Ashanti Region. Patient satisfaction level is assessed for the services offered at the selected hospitals in the Region. The five popular dimensions in service quality, also given the acronym, RATER, (thus: Reliability, Assurance, Tangibility, Empathy and Responsiveness) and as well as the introduction of demographic variables as a moderators were considered for this research. Major objective of this research is to know critical factors that lead to patient’s satisfaction. The data obtained were analysed by using reliability test, paired sample t-test, correlation analysis, descriptive analysis and hierarchical regression analysis all in an attempt to solve the research problem, which is to identify the variables that actually offer patients their desired satisfaction. The results showed that the quality of services offered by hospitals have positive impact and are significant in predicting patients’ satisfaction. Moreover, the findings show that Reliability, Assurance and Tangibility have a statistically significant positive effect on patients’ satisfaction whiles Responsiveness, Empathy, Gender, Age and length of years with facility do not have statistical effect on patients’ satisfaction. Finally, the findings of this empirical research reiterate the point of view that the most expected quality dimension by both patients and doctors in Ashanti region is assurance whiles the most perceived quality dimension by patients is empathy. The study provides the following recommendations as prioritizing of and training of staff health care delivery, motivation of health staff, education and training of health staff.
Description
A thesis submitted to The School of Business, KNUST in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of a Master of Philosophy in Business Administration- (International Business), 2015