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Background: Patient satisfaction is the extent to which the patients feel that their needs and expectations are being met by the service provided. As an indicator for assessing health services quality, assessment of user satisfaction is a very useful tool for administrations of out-patientclinics as it provides useful information for staff when solving organizational and operational problems.
Objective: The aim of the study was, to determine patients’ level of satisfaction with health services at Ophthalmology outpatient department (OPD) clinic of the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC), Tanzania.
Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted at Ophthalmology Out-patient department of the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC). Participants were obtained by systematic random sampling technique, and SERVQUAL questionnaire was used to collect data. Data entry and analysis was performed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).
Results: The gap on health service provision at Ophthalmology outpatient department clinicwas -13.4 (±16.7) signifying dissatisfaction among patients on health service they received. Only 42 participants out of 213 participants (19.7%) were satisfied with health services provided at Ophthalmology outpatient department clinic. In this study all five satisfaction domains had negative mean gap score, Responsiveness had -4.38, Reliability -2.63, Empathy -2.22, Assurance -2.15 and Tangible had -2.04.
Conclusion: The results of this study showed that, patients were not satisfied with the health services provision. There was a negative gap between patients’ perceptions and expectations. In order to fill this gap, the quality of health services provision needs to be improved by improving all dimensions of service quality.
Keywords: Patients’ level of satisfaction, Expectation, Perception, SERVQUAL tool, quality of health services |
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