Patients' trio need satisfaction : a gap analysis between expectations and perceptions

Healthcare improvement relating to basic hospital service attributes is one of the most fundamental driving forces to uplifting in economic and social transition for developing countries in an emerging context. The purpose of this paper is to measure patients’ trio need satisfaction toward doctor service quality (DSQ), nurse caring quality (NCQ), and hospital environment quality (HEQ) and compare the effects of perceived, expected, and service quality gap on patient satisfaction. Multiple regression analysis was used to explain the patient satisfaction. The result shows that the perceived service quality (67.3%) and the service quality gap (50.8%) can better explain patient satisfaction than the expected service quality (3.0%). Both perception and gap model show that DSQ, NCQ, and HEQ are significant predictors of patient satisfaction, where NCQ is the most important dimension in explaining patient satisfaction. This study focuses on patient need satisfaction research by being one of the few empirical studies relating to the most basic hospital service quality attributes, contributing to the development of hospital service quality in a developing context of Bangladesh.