The perception of outpatient care quality by healthcare users in Ukraine

ABSTRACT

Background

Ukraine has been improving the quality of health care by reforming the health care system. Evidence on healthcare users’ perceptions of quality is important for future system changes. This paper aims to analyze the aspects of quality that outpatient care users find most important.

Methods

Data from a longitudinal household survey ‘Health Index. Ukraine’ in 2016–2019 were used. The survey had a sample size of over 10,000 participants per wave. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics as well as binary regression analysis.

Results

Our results showed the importance of quality attributes as ‘effectiveness of treatment’ and ‘qualification of medical personnel’ as well as changes in the perception of quality attributes connected with payment policies and general management of the facility (like working hours, setting and hygiene ensuring by medical personnel).

Conclusions

Our study provides new insights into the importance of healthcare quality attributes for outpatient healthcare users in Ukraine, showing the need to develop in future a national policy on quality and a national quality strategy for health care that incorporates quality aspects important to patients to make the healthcare system more responsive to the needs and expectations of healthcare users.

KEYWORDS:

• Health care
• healthcare quality
• perceived quality
• service quality
• healthcare management
• outpatient care
• Ukraine

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the International Renaissance Foundation for sharing the results of the ‘Health Index. Ukraine’ Survey for this publication. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Valentyna Anufriyeva

Valentyna Anufriyeva is Ph.D. researcher at the Department of Health Services Research, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University. Her research focuses on the healthcare quality, quality perceptions among patients and healthcare professionals.

Milena Pavlova

Milena Pavlova is Professor of Health Economics and Equity at Maastricht University. Her research focuses on the financing of the healthcare sector, including health insurance, formal and informal patient payments, as well as stated preference approaches, such as willingness-to-pay methods and discrete choice experiments.

Tetiana Stepurko

Tetiana Stepurko is Assistant Professor at the department of sociology, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine. Her research focuses on the informal practices in health care, including patient payments, medical education, and governance.

Wim Groot

Wim Groot is Professor of Health Economics since 1998 and Professor of Evidence Based Education since 2008, both at Maastricht University. His research focuses on the health economics and consumer behaviour and preference formation in health care.