The Assessment of Perceived Service Quality of Public Health Care Services in Romania Using the SERVQUAL Scale

Abstract The objective of this paper is to explore the application of the original SERVQUAL scale in the context of public health care services in Romania. More specifically, we implemented the SERVQUAL scale in order to uncover whether it fits as the original version or adjustments should be done and to define the demographic profiles of health care consumers who use public services in Romania. We have selected our sample respondents from a list of a gynaecological health care forum members, namely women from Bucharest who should have posted messages on the chosen forum no more than three months before the study was conducted and the messages should have comprised their experiences with certain physicians. The internal consistency, validity and reliability of the SERVQUAL scale were assessed with the Cronbach's alpha values and factor analysis. The perceived service quality was measured as the difference between perceptions and expectations known as the gap. Results indicated that the biggest gap score was registered by the tangibles dimension followed by responsiveness dimension and reliability dimension.

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