Patient Satisfaction as an Indicator of Service Quality in Malaysian Public Hospitals

The main aim of the paper is to provide an empirical analysis on patient satisfaction as n indicator of service quality in Malaysian public hospitals. Self‐administered questionnaires ere administered to patients by convenience sampling. Two sets of questionnaires were ed, one for inpatient and another one set for outpatient. Selection of hospitals was made cording to states in Peninsular Malaysia. 23 hospitals covering all state level hospitals, the ational Referral Centre and selected district hospitals were chosen as respondent hospitals. wo dimensions of service quality emerged, namely clinical and physical dimension of rvice. Both outpatient and inpatient were found to be more satisfied with clinical di- ension of service than physical dimension. For outpatient satisfaction, there was positive orrelation between waiting time and patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction was also found be higher in the smaller district hospitals than in the larger state hospitals. For clinical mension of service, patients were satisfied with the services of doctors and nurses, while r physical dimension of service, patients were satisfied with the cleanliness of the cilities. The ability of the research to be conducted by random sampling was inhibited by e reluctance of patients to cooperate, which led to the use of convenience sampling. udies have also shown that patients are reluctant to express their feelings on services pro- ded by their caregivers. The study provides primary data for a nationwide study on patient tisfaction in Malaysian public hospitals, for both inpatient and outpatient. (Authors' abstract