Abstract:
For many years, Ayurveda has been practiced extensively in Sri Lanka by
traditional practitioners as well as licensed practitioners. The Ayurvedic
sector is currently facing competition from western medical practitioners
and traditional practitioners in providing healthcare services. However,
there is no clear evidence about how the patients/consumers have
perceived the service quality of the Government Ayurvedic hospitals and
institutions. Therefore, the primary objective of this study was to identify
the impact of service quality on patient satisfaction in government
Ayurvedic hospitals in Anuradhapura district. The study was carried out
using 124 patients who received the service from the government Ayurvedic
hospitals in Anuradhapura district through convenience sampling
technique. A conceptual model was developed using service quality as the
independent variable and patient satisfaction as the dependent variable to
conduct this study. The five dimensions of the 5Q Model such as quality of
the object, quality of the process, quality of interaction, quality of
infrastructure and quality of atmosphere were used to measure the service
quality dimensions of the hospitals. The regression analysis results revealed
that the quality of the object, quality of the process, and quality of interaction
positively contributed to the patient's satisfaction while the quality of
infrastructure and the quality of atmosphere dimensions negatively
contributed to patients’ satisfaction. Therefore, it is necessary to take
appropriate actions to improve the quality of infrastructure and the quality
atmosphere to improve the service quality of the hospitals and to enhance
extensively the patients’ satisfaction with the Government Ayurvedic
hospitals particularly in Anuradhapura district and generally in Sri Lanka.
