Thesis for the Degree of Master A Study on Factors of Service Quality Affecting the Satisfaction of patients in Thanh Hoa General Hospital June 2017 Department of Business Administration Graduate School of Soongsil University DO MANH HUNG Thesis for the Degree of Master A Study on Factors of Service Quality Affecting the Satisfaction of patients in Thanh Hoa General Hospital June 2017 Department of Business Administration Graduate School of Soongsil University DO MANH HUNG Thesis for the Degree of Master A Study on Factors of Service Quality Affecting the Satisfaction of patients in Thanh Hoa General Hospital A thesis supervisor: Prof. Park, Jong-Woo Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master June 2017 Department of Business Administration Graduate School of Soongsil University DO MANH HUNG To approve the submitted thesis for the Degree of Master By DO MANH HUNG Thesis Committee Chair Gim Gwang Yong (signature) Member Park Jong Woo (signature) Member Hoang Dinh Hai (signature) June 2017 Graduate School of Soongsil University TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT. viiii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. Structure of thesis:.
5 CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKG ROUND. Definition of service and features of service .4 Relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction .5 Research models on service quality and cutomer satisfaction.6 Some recent studies on customer satisfaction in healthcare sector. 15 CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOG Y. 26 CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH RESULTS .1 Classification of samples of age of patients .2 Education-base classification of patients.3 Occupation-based classification.4 Income-based classification .2 Results of answers to survey questionnaires .3 Evaluation of reliability of scale of factors .4 Exploratory factor analysis.1 Results of exploring analysis of independent variables .2 Exploring factor anlaysis of dependent variable .1 Results of regression analysis method by Enter method.
Testing of research hypothesises. 7 Testing of difference between groups of patients under indicia.1 Testing of difference between group of patients with different ages.2 Testing of difference between groups of patients under their education.3 Testing of difference between group of patients under their occupation.4 Testing of difference between groups under income of patients.8 Discussion from the research result. 58 - ii - CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION .1 Summary of the study. Recommendations from the research result.3 Contributions and meaning of the research .1 Contributions of the research.2 The significance of the study.4 Limitations of the research .5 Research directions in the future.
77 - iii - LIST OF TABLES [Table 2- 1] Summary of some studies on patient satisfaction in healthcare srervices .23 [Table 4-1] Results of sample size ………………………………………………29 [Table 4-3] Summary of answers to questionnaires .33 [Table 4-4] Results of testing reliability of scale of factors .35 [Table 4-55] KMO and Bartlett's Test of independent variables.39 [Table 4-6] Total Variance Explained of independent variables.39 [Table 4- 7] Rotated Component Matrix of independent variables .40 [Table 4- 8] KMO and Bartlett's Test of dependent variable .42 [Table 4-9] Total variance explain of……………………………………………42 [Table 4- 10] Component Matrix of dependent variables.43 [Table 4-11] Pearson correlation coefficient .44 [Table 4-12] Summary of information of estimation method by enter method.46 [Table 4- 13] ANOVA by enter method .46 [Table 4- 14] coefficients of estaimation model by Enter method.47 [Table 4- 15] Statistics of average value under the age of patients .51 [Table 4- 16] Result of variance analysis under ages of patients.52 [Table 4-17] Statistics of average value of education of parents of patients.52 [Table 4-18] Result of variance analysis of education of patients.53 [Table 4- 19] Statistics of average value of group under occupation of patients .54 [Table 4-20] Results of variance of ……………………………………………54 - iv - [Table 4- 21] Statistics of average value of groups under income of patients.57 [Table 4- 22 ] Analysis of variance under income of parents of patients.57 [Table 4-23] Statistical value of factors.59 - v- LIST OF FIGURES [Figure 2-1] Research Model.19 [Figure 4-1] Education-based classification of patients .31 [Figure 4-2] Occupation-based classification of patients.32 [Figure 4-3] Patient income-based classification.33 [Figure 4-4] Graph of average value of satisfaction point under education.54 [Figure 4-5] Graph of average value of income of patients.58 [Figure 4-6] Relationship between dependent and independent variable.60 - vi - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisors Prof. Park, Jong-Woo who gave me valuable assistance and advices in completing the dissertation and the MBA course. I also thank to a ll lecturers and staff of Soongsil University and Hong Duc University for their supports. Thanks to Thanh Hoa General Hospital and my workmates who provided me information to fulfill the research.
Specially thanks to my wife and my friends for their encouragement during the time to study and do the research - vii - ABSTRACT A Study on Factors of Service Quality Affecting the Satisfaction of patients in Thanh Hoa General Hospital Hung Do Manh Department of Business Administration Graduate School of Soongsil University Patient satisfaction is a multi‐dimensional healthcare construct affected by many variables. Healthcare quality affects patient satisfaction, which in turn influences positive patient behaviours such as loyalty. Patient satisfaction and healthcare service quality, though difficult to measure, can be operationalized using a multi‐disciplinary approach that combines patient inputs as well as expert judgement. The purpose of this study is to research the satisfaction of patients with service quality components in SERVQUAL model in Thanh Hoa General Hospital, Vietnam.
The research methodology to be used is quantitative research methodology through investigation and processing data such as descriptive statistics, scale inspection, factor analysis, and correlation and regression analysis. Processing support software is SPSS 20.0 Research result points out the satisfaction of patients who suffer the effect of four factors (1) assurance, (2) empathy, (3) responsiveness và (4) tangibles. - viii - Reliability takes no effect in the general satisfaction of patients. Such factors have positive impacts on the satisfaction of patients.
The research result shows no difference as per the discrimination signs like age of patients, income of patients‟ parents, career and educational qualification. Finally, the study indicates the limitations and recommendations of research orientation for future studies. Key words: Satisfaction of patients, Health care, service quality. SERVQUAL - ix - CHAP TER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research background Health care quality is a global issue.
The health care industry is undergoing a rapid transformation to meet the ever-increasing needs and demands of its patient population. Hospitals are shifting from viewing patients as uneducated and with little health care choice, to recognizing that the educated consumer has many service demands and health care choices available. The closest most of measuring consumers‟ experiences is the occasional satisfaction survey In term of service quality research sector, the pioneering studies are performed by Parasuraman and partners (1985, 1988, 1991) in USA, Gronroos (1984) in Enrope, Kano (1984) in Japan, etc. and nowadays the studies on service quality and satisfaction of customers are carried out by various researchers in many fields such as retial (Durvasula and Lysonski.
2010 ); health care (Babakus and Mangold, 1992; Mostafa.M et al, 2011; Chakraborty. A et al, 2012; Soita. Studies on service quality become important topics because of its relationship with costs (Crosby, 1979), benefits (Buzzell and Gale, 1987; Rust and Zahorik, 1993), satisfacttion of customers (Bollton and Drew, 1991; Boulding et al, 1993), cutomers‟ ability to repurchase (Reichelheld and Sasser, 1990) (cited by Buttle F. This discovery is especially -1- meaningful to managers and service suppliers to improve products and services aimed to tailor the need of customers better.
In health care sector in Vietnam, now there are many different facilities such as the State hospitals, private hospitals and practitioners with the tradition medicine method in the community. Development of economy requires the higher quality of services, especially health care for patients. Causes of special concern to patients are the improved income of households and good living conditions resulted in concern and attention to safety and heath of people. This results in the pressure put into the treatment service facilities to be renewed to tailot the increasingly high need from people, in which healthcare services is the first.
Currently, the studies on satisfaction on customer services were conducted a lot by Vietnamese reseasrchers in numerous fields (For example: Nguyen Thi Phuong Tram, 2008; Nguyen Trung Kien, 2005…). However, the studies on satisfaction on the service quality for patients are limited (For example, Bui Thi Thu Hương, 2009, Pham Nhat Yen, 2008). From up to now, there is no systematic study to evaluate the satisfaction of customers on service quality of Thanh Hoa General Hospital to be conducted. Some case studies to be conducted only assess the descriptive statistics but not detailedly analyze the essense relationship among factors affecting the satisfaction of patients for hospitals‟s services.
Thus, a systematic study is necessary to discover and answer the research questions to be offerred. -2- Therefore, as an administration officers at hospital, I choose the topic “A Study on factors of service quality affecting the patient satisfaction in Thanh Hoa General Hospital” to be my study. Research objectives This study offers some main purposes as follows: The first is to evaluate the status of service quality to be provided by the hospital over major aspects of SERVQUAL model and evaluate the overall quality of customers. The second is to discover the factors to be meaningful and not meaningful for improvement of service quality of hospital in term of statistics.
The third is to assess the differences in how population factors affect the satisfaction of patients. Research subject: The current status of service quality to be provided to patients by Thanh Hoa General Hospital; The satisfaction of patients for healthcare services in Thanh Hoa General Hospital.4 Research process Research process is discribed as follows: Step1: Identify the research matter. In this step, the author will define the matters offerred from management, motive, purposes of performing such study and process of performing the project of writing the thesis based on references -3- from opinions of guide lecturers. Finishing this step, the author will draft the main contents of Chapter 1 and 2 of thesis.
Step2: Research model and design the research model: After the research matters, research motive, research objectives and research process as in Step 2, the author will consider theory on service quality and research model on satisfaction of customers from other studies. Choose a suitable research model with the high reliability and ability to be applied to the research matter in the thesis as a base model of building the the oretical research model. Specifically, in this thesis, the author chooses the SERVQUAL model as a base theoretical model because it is proved on reliability by various studies (see in Chapter 2). Step 3: Develop the investigation questions for data collect ion.
After the theoretical model to be established, the author conducts the development of investigation questions. Such questions are inherited from previous studies and calibrated in appropriateness with the research conditions in patient healthcare sector, especially children. To calibrate the aspects in the theoretical model, the author applies the group discussion method for calibration. Step 4: Investigation and data collection, after the final question sheet is completed, the author will deliver the question sheet and collect data from customers for the study.
Explorary method is to use the directly-delivered written question sheet to the relatives of patients who takes care of patients at hospital. The investigation sheets after interviews will be gathered, checked and inputed, cleaned to serve for the next data analysis. Together with data -4- collection, the author will amend and complete the preparation of Chapter 1, 2 and 3 as guided by lecturers. Step 5: Summarize and analyze data.
Data after being cleaned and coded will be summarized and analyzed with different statistical analysis techniques. Analysis data with the support of SPSS 20.0 software and analysis techniques: discriptive statistics, inspection of scale reliability, factor analysis, regression analysis and inspection of research hypothesis. Step6: Complete the thesis.