Service quality in healthcare: Exploring servicescape and patients’ perceptions

ABSTRACT

Aim: The study was conducted to assess the construct validity of the proposed servicescape model and to assess the perception of patients regarding the servicescape.

Methodology: The data for this research were acquired from 100 outpatients and 100 inpatients visiting a tertiary care multi-speciality hospital. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the construct validity. Data were analyzed by computing mean, standard deviation, Mann–Whitney test.

Results: The study proved the validity of the tool. The results also proved that there is no significant difference between perception of outpatients and inpatients with regards to design & social factors as well as overall quality of servicescape.

KEYWORDS:

• Healthcare servicescape
• healthcare service quality
• service environment
• patients
• patient perceptions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Contributors: The authors participated in designing the study and interpreted the results. Sweta Dcunha wrote literature review & conducted data acquisition. Data analysis and interpretation was done by Sucharitha Suresh. Drafting of the paper were done Vijaya Kumar. All authors contributed to the methods and conclusions of the manuscript. All authors participated in the revision and approval of the final manuscript.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sweta DCunha

Sweta DCunha is currently a Professor in Department of Hospital Administration, Father Muller Medical College, Mangalore. She has 16 years of academic experience & holds a doctorate in management studies. Her areas of interest are quality management, services marketing, hospital operations.

Sucharitha Suresh

Sucharitha Suresh is currently a Professor in Department of Community Medicine, Father Muller Medical College, Mangalore. She has 25 years of academic experience & holds a doctorate in management studies. Her areas of expertise are research methodology, statistics, operations research, six sigma methodology.

Vijaya Kumar

Vijaya Kumar is currently a Professor and Dean Academic Affairs in A.J Institute of Management studies, Mangalore. He has 25 years of academic experience & holds a doctorate in Commerce. His areas of expertise are International Finance, Portfolio Management, Accounting Research and Quantitative Methods.