Background and Objectives: Assessing quality dimensions in health care sector according to the sensitivity of the services is very important. This study was conducted to assess the quality of services in outpatient wards in Shiraz.

Materials and Methods: This was a discriptive study conducted in summer 2014 on 200 patients referring to Shahid Motahari Health Center. The standard questionnaire of SERVQUAL was used for assessing 6 dimensions of the services quality (Physical factors, Creditability, Responsiveness, Assuredness, Empathy and Access) were used. Data was analyzed using independent t-test, paired t-test and one-way ANOVA.

Results: There were significant differences between patients’ perceptions and expectations in all six dimensions of quality (p<0.05). There were negative gaps in all the quality aspects so that means expectations were beyond perceptions. The mean of general quality gap was -0.63 and the highest mean was related to responsiveness (-0.85) and the lowest was for physical aspect (-0.45). There were significant associations between marital status and empathy (p= 0.031) and also between education level and physical aspect (p=0.011), assuredness (p=0.012), responsiveness (p= 0.032) and empathy (p= 0.020).

Conclusion: Patients referring to this center did not consider the present quality of services in an acceptable level. It is necessary to plan effectively in order to decrease quality gap and improve it by related managers to achieve patients’ expectations.

Key words: Service quality, Perceptions, Expectations, SERVQUAL model, Outpatient ward, Shiraz

Funding: This research was funded by Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (SUMS).

Conflict of interest: None declared.

Ethical approval: The Ethics Committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences approved the study.

How to cite this article: Bastani P, Barati O, Sadeghi A, Sharifi S, Abhari SH. Analysis of Service Quality Gap in Outpatient Wards using SERVQUL Model in Shahid Motahhari Clinic of Shiraz in 2014. J RafsanjanUniv Med Sci 2016; 14(12): 1015-32. [Farsi]