Page 93 - GHES-2-4

Global Health Economics and
Sustainability
Nurse perceptions of quality measured by SERVPERF

perceptions of and satisfaction with health-care services. policies and interventions aimed at enhancing service
These studies also underscore the significance of patient quality in Yemeni hospitals.
safety and reliability as essential components of health- Quality improvement strategies should prioritize
care quality. However, the results of this study differ addressing recognized challenges in infrastructure,
from those of (Canova-Barrios & Oviedo-Santamaría, staffing shortages, and medical supplies. Increasing
2021; Riordan et al., 2020; and Verma et al., 2020), which investment in the health-care system could help improve
suggest that empathy and responsiveness are the most the standard of care provided to patients. Nursing staff
critical dimensions of health-care quality. In addition, play a pivotal role in delivering high-quality services.
these studies showed that demographic factors such as Their views provide useful information for tailoring
age, sex, and years of experience significantly impact
health-care quality, contrasting with the findings of the improvement efforts. Policies must acknowledge nurses’
present study. contributions and prioritize their training to bolster
skills and competencies. Doing so could strengthen the
Health-care service quality may vary significantly reliability of care provision.
across different types of hospitals and geographical
locations due to differences in resources, management Theoretically, the findings offer insights corroborating
practices, and patient demographics. Several limitations dimensions of the SERVPERF framework. Service
of the current study should be acknowledged. First, the quality perceptions seem to be influenced most by safety,
study relied on self-reported data from nurses, which reliability, and tangibility. This finding lends support for
may be subject to social desirability bias. Nurses might focusing improvement work on these aspects to positively
have overestimated or underestimated the quality of impact patient satisfaction. This study adds to the evidence
services due to personal biases, fear of reprisal, or the emphasizing the importance of systematically measuring
desire to present their workplace in a positive light. and enhancing health-care quality over time. Tools such
Second, the study focused solely on the perceptions of the as SERVPERF can be used to effectively monitor standards
nursing staff. It is widely acknowledged that nurses play and pinpoint areas for targeted reform. With refinement,
a crucial role in patient care, but the perceptions of other such strategic approaches offer pathways for strengthening
health-care professionals, such as doctors, pharmacists, Yemen’s health-care system and outcomes. Overall, regular
and administrative staff, as well as patients themselves, evaluation of quality from multiple perspectives seems
were not considered in this study. Having different integral for sustainable improvement. Further research
perspectives of non-nursing medical staff can provide applying these lessons more broadly could generate
a more comprehensive understanding of health-care valuable knowledge for policymaking.
service quality. Third, the study used a cross-sectional
design, which captures a snapshot of the situation at a Acknowledgment
particular point in time. This design does not allow for We kindly thank the Department of Management Science
the examination of changes in perceptions over time or at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University and
the establishment of causal relationships between the Yemen’s Ministry of Health for supporting this study.
SERVPERF dimensions and the perceived quality of
health-care services. Hence, future research should aim Funding
to address these limitations by including a more diverse None.
sample of hospitals, using multiple data collection
methods to reduce bias, incorporating the perspectives Conflict of interest
of other health-care professionals and patients, and
employing a longitudinal design to track changes over The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
time.
Author contributions
5. Conclusion Conceptualization: All authors
This study offers valuable insights into measuring health- Investigation: Ammar Ali Alraimi
care service quality and nursing staff perceptions in Writing–original draft: Ammar Ali Alraimi
Yemen. However, the findings are only generalizable to Writing–review & editing: Abhijeet Shelke
private hospitals. Future research could benefit from the Ethics approval and consent to participate
application of the SERVPERF model in public hospitals to
enable comparisons across different settings. The results We confirm that all the experiments conducted in this
provide empirical support for the development of targeted study were performed in accordance with the Declaration

Volume 2 Issue 4 (2024) 5 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.2525