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Introduction: The level of patients’ satisfaction is important for improving the quality of care
provided to patients, because it reflects the gap between the expected service and the experience
of the service, from the patients’ point of view. It can be used as a foundation of encouraging
health care providers to become more responsible to their patients.
Objective: To determine patients’ level of satisfaction with health services at the Orthopedics
out-patient department (OPD) clinic of the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC),
Tanzania.
Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted at the KCMC Orthopedics Out-patient
department clinic. 140 patients were selected using systematic sampling technique during the
study period and data was collected by entry and exit interviews using structured questionnaires
(SERVQUAL questionnaires). Data collected was analyzed using the Statistical Package for
Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.
Results: The overall patients’ level of satisfaction at Orthopedic OPD of KCMC hospital was
low (dissatisfaction). With the overall gap of -16.536 (±22.26). Of the five service domains
namely Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy; differences existed
between expectations and perceptions of the quality of services provided showing that patients
were not satisfied with the health services delivered at KCMC orthopedics OPD. Responsiveness
had the highest perception-expectation mean gap score (-5.45) indicating that the level of
satisfaction was the lowest on this domain, followed by Reliability (-3.207). Smallest mean gap
score was demonstrated by assurance (-2.007) indicating that the level of satisfaction was the
highest in assurance.
Conclusion: In general the study showed participants were not satisfied with health services they
receive at KCMC orthopedics OPD. There was negative gap in all domains and overall
expectations and perceptions. So to achieve the patients’ expectations, the quality of health
services needs to be improved through improving all the five SERVQUAL domains at the
KCMC orthopedic OPD. |
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