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. 2025 Jun 1;26(2):121-130.
doi: 10.30476/dentjods.2024.99413.2149. eCollection 2025 Jun.

The Quality of Providing Dental Services in the School of Dentistry and Private Clinics in Shiraz, Based on the SERVQUAL Model

Maryam Bakhtiar  1 , Mohsen Sharif Zadeh Ardakani  2 , Mohammad Reza Mokarram  3 , Samaneh Ansarifar  3 , Mehrdad Vossoughi  1
Affiliations

The Quality of Providing Dental Services in the School of Dentistry and Private Clinics in Shiraz, Based on the SERVQUAL Model

Maryam Bakhtiar et al. J Dent (Shiraz). .

Abstract

Background: The quality of dental services is an important factor in patient satisfaction and health outcomes. However, there is a lack of studies, which compare the quality of dental services provided in different settings such as dental schools and private clinics and measure the gap between patients' expectations and perceptions.

Purpose: This study aims to assess and compare the quality of dental services in Shiraz Dental School and private clinics using the SERVQUAL model and identify the dimensions that affect patient satisfaction.

Materials and method: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, 440 patients of the Shiraz dental school and private clinics in Shiraz participated in answering the SERVQUAL questionnaire to measure the perceptions and expectations of patients in six dimensions (tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and access).

Results: The mean gap score was (-1.27±0.59) for private clinics and (-0.40±0.45) for dental school, which was significant (p< 0.001) between expectations and perceptions in all dimensions in both settings. In private clinics, the largest gap was in the empathy dimension (-1.64±0.65) and the smallest gap was in the assurance dimension (-1.05±0.64). In the Shiraz dental school, the largest gap was in the tangibility dimension (-0.72±0.60) and the smallest gap was in the assurance dimension (-0.59±0.65).

Conclusion: The patients were satisfied with the services provided in the Shiraz dental school and private clinics of Shiraz, but the expectations of the patients were not met in all dimensions, which require periodic evaluations along with policies to respond to the needs and expectations of the patients in providing services in both sectors.

Keywords: Dental School; Private clinic; SERVQUAL model.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Radar diagram of the average expectations (blue lines) and perceptions (red lines) of patients referring to the dental school and private clinics according to questions of the service quality) SERVQUAL questionnaire. The numbers in the circle of the graph represent questions 1-31 of the SERVQUAL questionnaire and correspond to the numbers of the questions in Table 3 and the numbers in the center according to the average score given by patients are to expectations and perceptions. The gap between dental school (mean =-.40 ±.45) and private clinics (mean =-1.27±.59). The difference gap between the two groups was 0.86±0.51 which was significant (p= 0.000)
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