Patient Satisfaction Regarding Hospital Services : A study of Umeå hospital

Abstract: Patients are the key stakeholders in health care providers and it is extremely important to increase their satisfaction level. Patient satisfaction is a subject of great interest to the health care providers and researchers alike. As there are a lot of factors related to health care providers that causes patient selection and rejection. Since competition has increased in recent years, this exerts more pressure on health care providers to render more improved service quality in addition to build trust and gain high reputation. Improved quality of service has now become an important aspect of patient satisfaction, building trust is now a crucial milestone and gaining high reputation is considered the key for any health care provider. In practice and theory it has been proven that service quality dimensions, trust and reputation is related to patient satisfaction. For this, we took 5Q model of the service quality combine with trust and reputation, and how it affects patient satisfaction is the main theme of the study. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate that how 5Q model of the service quality, trust and reputation can effect patient satisfaction in health care sectors, for this study we researched Umeå hospital. This research is focused towards exploring the perceptions of patients who consume or undertook Umeå hospital services. It also provides an effective model for health care organization in practice and the study also contribute to literature from educational point of view.  Method: In this study hypothesis developed to investigate how 5Q model of the service quality, trust and reputation can effect patient satisfaction. For service quality 5Q model was used while several attributes were taken for trust and reputation to investigate the patient perception. Quantitative research strategy was adopted and convenience sampling technique was used to collect quantitative data from patients of Umeå hospital to get their satisfaction levels. Hypotheses were tested by using multiple regression analysis to the obtained data in SPSS. Findings: The study revealed interesting results for patient satisfaction regarding the 5Q model of the service quality, trust and reputation. Meanwhile 5Q model was used for service quality, which composes quality of object, quality of process, quality of infrastructure, quality of interaction and quality of atmosphere. Out of five dimensions, two gave positive effect and three gave no effect result by the patient for their satisfaction from the Umeå hospital. Trust gave no effect result, whereas reputation gave positive effect result by the patient for their satisfaction from the Umeå hospital. Implication/Contribution: The findings imply that 5Q model of the service quality is not the only factor that could lead to patient satisfaction in health care sectors but trust and reputation are also factors of great importance. Organizations need to improve every dimension of service quality, creating trust and achieve high reputation to gain high level of patient satisfaction. This study contributes to existing theories by confirming or adding value that have positive effect on patient satisfaction. 5Q model is a comprehensive model and it needs to be implemented in health care sector but with additional factors i.e. trust and reputation.  Key words: Patient satisfaction, Service quality, 5Q model, Trust, Reputation, Health care providers.