Patients’ Perception of Quality of Outpatient and Inpatient Care in General and Specialized Hospitals

There has been little research comparing patients’ perceptions of the quality of care in outpatient and inpatient settings between general and specialized hospitals. This study aimed to address this gap by examining 1,337 outpatients and 1,833 inpatients across all general (n = 5) and specialized (n = 7) tertiary public hospitals in a major city in China. Patients’ perceptions of the quality of care were assessed across six dimensions: safety, tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Dimension gap scores were used to compare perceptions of each dimension between the two hospital types, and statistical differences were determined using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Negative dimension gap scores were identified in the safety, tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy of outpatient and inpatient care in general and specialized hospitals, except for the tangibility of inpatient care in general hospitals. The negative dimension gap scores for specialized hospitals were significantly larger than those for general hospitals across all six dimensions of both inpatient and outpatient quality of care, except for assurance of inpatient care. Overall, outpatients and inpatients in both general and specialized hospitals did not experience the care they expected, and outpatient and inpatient care in specialized hospitals were perceived as lower quality than in general hospitals. Patient perceptions indicated that both outpatient and inpatient care in both general and specialized hospitals need further enhancements.