title: Patient's perceptions about the service quality of public hospitals located at District Kohat.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine patients' perception regarding service and quality of healthcare at public-sector institutions.
  
  
  METHODS
  The descriptive quantitative study was conducted in Kohat district, Pakistan, between July and December 2014, and focussed on 30 variables to assess the participants' perceptions of the actual healthcare service quality delivered. SERVQUAL instrument was used to measure the reliability and cronbach alpha was calculated to measure the reliability and validity of the instrument.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 200 questionnaires were distributed and 157(78.5%) were received back fully filled. Of them, 105(67%) were men and 52(33%) were women.The mean value of Assurance parameter was 3.05±0.88, indicating trust in public hospitals was high as they had experienced and capable doctors. On the other hand, the lowest mean value of 2.61±0.84 was for Empathy, highlighting the fact that public hospitals lacked the ability to handle patients' problem properly, services were not offered in time and they were short of staff.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Public hospitals were largely seen as failing to deliver quality service.
authors.affiliation: Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Science & Technology, Islamabad.
authors.forename: Bakhtiar
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Aman
authors.affiliation: Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Science & Technology, Islamabad.
authors.forename: Faisal
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Abbas
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006779:Hospitals, Public; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010154:Pakistan; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Patient's perception, Service quality, SERVQUAL, Public health sector, Kohat, Pakistan.