Patient’s Perception and Expectations of the Quality of Outpatient Services of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Sari City

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Out-patient department is the gateway to almost all of the hospital services. Providing method of service in this place has an important role in the general impression of the patient of hospital sanitary and treatment services. This research was done with the purpose of studying the perception and expectations of out-patient service receivers of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Sari. MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY A cross-sectional study was conducted on those patients in the outpatient service department of Imam Khomeini Hospital who at least have the junior high school degree. 200 people were selected as sample size with Morgan's table. Respondents answered the questionnaire two times. Once they expressed their perception of the provided services and once for their expectations. Therefore, the following expectation scores are obtained. To prove the significance of demographic variables with perception and expectations, the T and Tukey's tests and also to compare different groups the variance analysis test are used. FINDINGS The mean of age was 25.68± 9.086 (The youngest participant was 16 and the oldest 67 years old). It was observed from the results of the T test there is no significant difference between sex and residential place. It was clear that in perception part; there was a significant difference, at the level of 0.05 significance, in all groups except for responding and behavior, while, in expectation level, no significance in the age of the dimensions except for access. CONCLUSION Results showed that the satisfaction status of patients in Imam Hospital clinic in Sari is good. Many of the existing shortages can be improved by presenting an accurate and organized program. The present study shows that some service dimensions of patients require being promoted, the most important of which include behavior, accessibility and affordability, physical and responsiveness dimensions.