Abstract
Background: Health service quality has become important for customers when deciding on services; which are intangible and depends on their perceptions and expectations.
Aim of Study: Was to identify the relationship between cardiac catheterization patient's expectations and their satis-faction with health service quality in selected hospitals.
Subjects and Methods: A descriptive, correlational design was conducted to achieve the aim of the study. The study was conducted in the Cardiac Catheterization Units at El-Manial University Hospital (ISO non-certified hospital) and the New El-Kasr Al-Ainy Teaching Hospital (ISO certified hospital), Egypt. A convenient sample of 147 patients from both units participated in the current study. A modified service quality (SERVQUAL) tool was adopted to collect the data.
Results: There was a highly significant relation between levels of expectations and satisfaction of patients with health service quality.
Conclusion: Most of the patients with high expectation had also high satisfaction while most of the patients with moderate expectation had moderate satisfaction. The most important factors contributing to expect quality was reliability and responsiveness while the most important factors contrib-uting to satisfaction with quality was empathy.
Recommendations: Hospital managers and health care providers should identify patient's expectations before health services delivery to enhance their satisfaction and health service quality.