Relationship Between Service Quality and Operational Performance of Public Hospitals in Mombasa County, Kenya
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Date
2016Author
Munene, Geraldine K
Type
ThesisLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Healthcare system in Kenya aims to provide patient centered care and improve quality of
care by ensuring health interventions are organized around patient needs and
expectations. In Mombasa County patients suffering from minor ailments travel for long
distances to the county referral hospital due to lack of equipment, personnel and drugs at
health centersthough the average distance to healthcare facilities is 0.55km. The study
aimed at establishing service quality dimensions perception by customers anddetermining
their relationship with operational performance of public hospitals in Mombasa County.
The study adopted a cross-sectional descriptive survey research design. The population of
study was 24,688 which was the average monthly cumulative patients seen in the four
public hospitals in Mombasa County which included a tier 5, a tier 4 and two tier 3
hospitals. Proportionate stratified random sampling was used to determine the sample
size. The study used primary data and data was collected from patients using a structured
questionnaire with 252 questionnaires completely filled. The study found that hospital
tangibles, service assurance, service reliability, empathy of services and service
responsiveness were perceived to be poor.The study found that the hospitals offered poor
quality of services, had long waiting times to see doctors and for laboratory tests and poor
communication skills and relationships between patients and medical staffwhich affected
service quality perception. The findings of the study suggest a strong relationship
between operational performance and service quality with a correlation coefficient of
0.406. Service quality dimensions reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance and
tangibles all had a significant positive relationship with operational performance.
Sufficient drugs and X-ray equipment are required by hospitals to ensure provision of
service quality and sufficient and proficient health personnel employed to reduce waiting
time and improve service quality.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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