Journal of

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Background: Focusing on making opportunities to participate of patients in all levels of health care system is important in order to develop of system capability that could make improving of patients’ safety and quality of care services. The aim of this study was to determine inpatient perceptions in general hospitals of Tehran medical university regarding patient participate in treatment decisions and safety. Material and methods: This was a cross-sectional study in 1390. First, the list of eight general hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of medical sciences and all clinical wards were obtained through the university website. Then, stratified random sampling method applied to collect 300 patients as a sample size. Data were collected by using a structured questionnaire that validity and reliability were accepted. Descriptive statistical methods, linear regression and multivariate logistic regression were applied to analyze. Results: From total of 300 patients, 60% of them were female. The level of participating by patients in cure decision making were at high level (59.7%) and 27% in low level. The range of patients’ safety was at high (60%) and low (26%). The level of participate in decision making of cure process had high rate among young people and employed participants. The patients who were unmarried, educated, and employed had lower score in patients’ safety. The participants’ perception had no effect on the patients’ safety perceptions. Conclusion: The symptoms that might be interpreted as an abnormal could be interpreted in different ways by the others. These unusual results could come from dissimilarities in demographic features

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Background: understanding the patient expectations and perceptions of service quality is one of the requirements for improving quality of health services. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the gap between patient’s expectations and perceptions in five dimensions of service quality in hospitals affiliated with Qazvin University of Medical Sciences.

Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on 298 patients at hospitals affiliated with Qazvin University of Medical Sciences; it is designed to evaluate the quality of health services based on client’s expectations and perceptions and to determine the strengths and weaknesses of service quality. Data collection was performed by standardized SERVQUAL questionnaire  to measure quality of services . the reliability and validity of this questionnaire has previously been confirmed by studies in Iran and other countries. Data analysis was done using SPSS software was performed.

Results: The results showed that there was significant correlation between patients’ expectations and perceptions in all dimensions of quality (p<0.05). The Reliability (2.36) and Assurance (2.24) dimensions have the most and responsiveness dimension (1.98) has the lowest gap. Also (A) and (D) hospitals have the most gap and (C) hospital has the lowest.

Conclusion: The negative gap (expectations more than perceptions) in all dimensions of quality showed that it is necessary to improve service quality in all dimensions. in order to reduce the gap of all five dimensions of quality and provide desired services, it is recommended that hospital managers by planning and their optimal management take the patients’ needs into account.