assessing quality of family health services in view points of service users in urmia health posts

assessing quality of family health services in view points of service users in urmia health posts   nabilou b[1],farokh eslamlou hr[2]*   received: 1 may , 2013 accepted: 2 jul , 2013   abstract background & aims:  community health largely depend on the primary health care sector of each country and primary healthcare including family health, as first contact services have basic role in health attainment. quality of care remains one of the most significant challenges facing the health care system. service users have critical roles in identifying their own needs and preferences. the objective of this study is assessing the consumers' perceptions of quality in family health services at urmia heath posts. materials & methods: a sample of 200 females’ health care consumers participated in this cross sectional descriptive study which was done in 2010. a questionnaire based on the servqual instrument with five dimensions of family health services quality was used for data collection. to do statistical analysis, descriptive statistic and x2, friedman and wilcoxon tests were applied. results: the findings of this study indicated that 82.2% respondents perceived quality of service moderate and 17.8% as worse, with a lack of good quality. comparison of dimensions showed there was a significant difference between them concerning the quality of services.  conclusion: from service users’ point of view, family health services quality were not acceptable thus quality improvement initiatives are required in all dimensions specially responsiveness. key words: family health, quality dimensions, primary health care, health post   address: reproductive health research center, urmia university of medical sciences, urmia, iran tel: (+984413445138) email: [email protected]   [1] assistant professor of health services management, school of public health, urmia university of medical sciences, urmia, iran   [2] associate professor of maternal and child health, reproductive health research center, urmia university of medical sciences, urmia, iran (corresponding author)