Introduction: Improving service quality is very important in health care delivery and can increase patient satisfaction. The quality of hospital services is primarily based on the assessment of patients' expectations and perceptions of service quality. This study aimed to determine patients’ expectations and perceptions about service quality of cardiac surgery wards in private hospitals.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 136 patients, hospitalized in cardiac surgery wards of private hospitals, in Mashhad. The data collection tool was a standardized SERVUS questionnaire. Service quality was assessed in six dimensions at two different time periods (admission time and discharge). To analyze the data, descriptive and analytical statistics were used.
Results: Service quality in both parts, expectations and perceptions, and in all six dimensions was at the satisfactory level. These dimensions included tangible factors, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and usability. There was a negative gap between expectations and perceptions in all six dimensions. This finding suggests that the level of received service quality was lower than what was expected. The gap between general expectations and perceptions was -0.73 and was statistically significant. There was a significant inverse correlation between general expectations and age. A significant direct correlation was observed between patients’ general expectations and satisfaction.
Conclusion: Considering the gap between expectations and perceptions in all six dimensions, and the nature of most of these dimensions, which are somehow influenced by the interaction between patients and staff, adoption of measures by training staff for interpersonal relation can be effective.

Keywords: QUALITY, HEALTH CARE, SERVUS MODEL

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