A Study of the Perception Gap on Nursing Service between Consumers and Providers

Lee, Mi Aie

Abstract

PURPOSE
this study was to investigate the perception gap on nursing service between consumers and providers. METHOD: the questionnaire founded on the SERVQUAL was developed and distributed to 300 patients and 210 nurses at the three subjected general hospitals in three provincial city, Korea during February to March, 2001. For data analysis, Cronbachs' Alpha, frequency, t-test, and paired t-test were used. RESULT: 1. In the gap analysis on the 20 properties constituting nursing service, providers almost all perceived higher than consumer in quality. Among them, the number of properties being statistically significant was 7 in the expectation, 18 in the important and 7 in the performance. 2. In the comparison analysis of the perception gap on the expectation-performance and the important-performance, it turned out that the subjected hospitals had to improve their equipment and facilities immediately. It was suggested a good strategy to strengthen the responsiveness factor and the assurance factor of nursing service.
CONCLUSION
it could be concluded that nurses have to recognize the blind spot of their perception and endeavor to take away the perception gap between consumers and providers.