DIMENSIONS OF HEALTHCARE SERVICES QUALITY BASED ON PERCEPTION OF PRIMARY HEALTHCARE USERS USING FACTOR ANALYSIS

Abstract

In today's business environment, the demand for better quality health services is becoming imperative. Market openness in the field of primary healthcare has led public health institutions to apply the concept of quality management as a key instrument in the fight against competition. This paper builds on a previously published study on the expectations of primary healthcare users, which now focuses on their perception and recognition of gaps in order to develop a final model of primary healthcare quality management. The research was conducted using a modified SERVQUAL questionnaire on a controlled random sample of 300 primary healthcare users in nine municipalities of Tuzla Canton of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Exploratory factor analysis of the main components based on the orthogonal rotation of VARIMAX was used. The general goal of the research is to use scientific methods to build a final model of quality management of health services in public primary healthcare institutions. Based on the set goal, the central hypothesis is defined, which says that by applying factor analysis it is possible to identify key dimensions and attributes of health service quality from the aspect of perception of primary healthcare users. The research confirms the existence of selected four dimensions of the quality of health services on the scale of perception, so the conclusions and proposals for primary healthcare managers are presented. The limitation of the research process refers to the geographical limitation of the selected sample, and it is recommended to extend the research to the entire territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Keywords

• healthcare
• factor analysis
• user perception
• service quality: model