Service Quality and Patients Satisfaction with Healthcare Delivery: Empirical Evidence from Patients of the Out Patient Department of a Public University Hospital in Ghana

Abstract

The objectives that guided the paper were to examine the quality dimensions and patient satisfaction with healthcare delivery. The study was a cross- sectional survey that adopted the convenience sampling technique to select 400 out – patients in a public university hospital in Ghana. The data gathered were used to examine the psychometric properties of the SERVQUAL dimensions. Findings revealed gaps across all the SERVQUAL dimensions with responsiveness (-. 762) having the widest gap, followed by reliability (-. 678), tangibility (-. 609), empathy (-.576) and assurance (-.537).             The Pearson’s correlational matrix further showed that perceived assurance (r = .349, p < .05), perceived tangibility (r = .327, p < .05), perceived empathy (r = .384, p < .05), perceived responsiveness (r = .400, p < .05) and perceived reliability (r = -.018, p = n.s). The study indicated that patients’ satisfaction was best explained by perceived responsiveness, followed by perceived empathy, perceived assurance, perceived tangibility, and perceived reliability. The study will be of interest to hospital administrators, stakeholders and academicians investigating the relationships between the SERVQUAL dimensions and patient satisfaction using the hierarchical regression model.

Keywords: Service quality, SERVQUAL, Patient satisfaction, Public University in Ghana