Abstract

VELANDIA SALAZAR, Freddy; ARDON CENTENO, Nelson  and  JARA NAVARRO, María Inés. Satisfacción y calidad: análisis de la equivalencia o no de los términos. Rev. Gerenc. Polit. Salud [online]. 2007, vol.6, n.13, pp.139-168. ISSN 1657-7027.

The purpose of this article is to place perceived quality measurements, carried out by DANE in their Quality of Life surveys of 1997 and 2003, in relation to the concept of patient satisfaction. What is understood as health quality in general is shown briefly first and it is indicated that when quality medical attention is mentioned it is in light of a problem of satisfaction. Then, in more detail, the concept of satisfaction is considered and the shape of the relationship between the two concepts is explored, resulting from establishing the measure in which one of them can represent the other. From this perspective, quality measurements can be interpreted either as satisfaction indicators or as its direct measurement. Finally, the theories that somehow incorporate perceived quality in the determination of satisfaction are presented indicating that it doesn’t constitute the totality of the explanation. These are theories that describe the paper played by expectations and their varying corroboration through the product attribute perception, which is the usual way of understanding perceived quality. It is concluded that although perceived quality of health care as an indicator, says something about the degree of satisfaction reached by the patient, it doesn’t appear anyways, a good representative, as even if the expectations are an important factor in the explanation, and even if they were the principal one, there is agreement about the very relevant intervention of other factors.

Keywords : quality; perceived quality; satisfaction; expectations; health care; health services.

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