Journal of

Background and Aim: Over the past decade, the number of private centers providing health care services in Iran has had a continuous growth and the highly competitive market in private hospitals industry has caused increasing pressure on them to provide services with a higher quality. The purpose of this study was to assess the quality of services being provided in private hospitals of Tehran as judged by patients.

Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2010 in Tehran. The study sample comprised 983 patients, randomly selected from 8 private hospitals. The survey instrument was the standard SERVQUAL questionnaire. Wilcoxon, t-test, and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used for statistical analyses.

Results: The total mean scores of patients' expectation and perception were 4.92 and 4.02, respectively. The highest figures were related to the tangible factors dimension and the lowest ones to the empathy dimension. The differences between the perception and expectation for all the 22 items and the 5 dimensions were found to be statistically significant(p< 0.001).

Conclusion: SERVQUAL is valid and reliable in hospital settings as a standard tool for the assessment of quality. The results of the present study have revealed the areas that need to be improved as far as the patients are concerned. Measuring the opinion of patients can help facilitate the provision of hospital services, and improve the quality of such services and patients' satisfaction.

Background and Aim: Based on theories and researches, two variables effective in the continuous improvement of services are trust in and identification with hospital goals. The present study aims to explore the relationship between such variables among nursing staff members in private hospitals of Shiraz.

Materials and Methods: This research is a cross-sectional correlation study. Some 340 nurses(58 males and 282 females) were selected using the stratified sampling technique.
Three questionnaires for the assessment of identification with hospital goals, measurement of continuous improvement, and determination of trust in hospital were used. The reliability of data collection devices turned out to be 0.70, 0.70 and 0.79, respectively. Besides, the construct validity was confirmed through factor analysis. Data were analyzed inferentially using Pearson's correlation test and hierarchical regression analysis.

Results: The findings show that the relationship between identification with hospital goals and trust and nurses' effort to improve continuously is positive and significant. Moreover, the results of hierarchical regression analysis show that after controlling gender, age, experience and education, first identification with hospital goals and then trust in hospital play a significant role in the effort to improve continuously.

Conclusion: Nurses' effort to improve continuously is mostly influenced by identification with hospital goals rather than trust in hospital.

Background and Aim: Based on theories and researches, three variables effective in the organizational citizenship behavior are e thical values, job satisfaction and psychological empowerment. The present study aims to explore the relationship between these variables and the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among the staff members of private hospitals in Shiraz.

Materials and Methods: This is a cross-sectional correlational study. Some 330 staff members (147 males and 183 females) were selected using stratified sampling technique. The data collection devices consisted of five standardized questionnaires, the reliability of which turned out to be 0.85, 0.93, 0.70, 0.89, 0.90 and 0.70 Besides, the construct validity was confirmed through factor analysis. The data were analyzed inferentially using Pearson’s correlation test, stepwise regression analysis and SEM.

Results: The findings revealed that there was a significant positive correlation between ethical principles, psychological empowerment and job satisfaction with organizational citizenship behavior (p<0/001). Moreover, the findings of stepwise regression analysis showed that ethical climate played a significant role in predicting OCB.

Conclusion: The staff members’ effort to enhance OCB is mostly influenced by psychological empowerment in private hospital.