Abstract
To examine the gap between physician's perceived importance and performance of care and to identify factors associated with the gap. A self-administered questionnaire survey was conducted with 91 physicians working in a University hospital in Seoul. The respondents were asked about their perceived importance and actual performance of interpersonal care on a 5-point Likert-type scale, indicating a higher score as higher importance and performance. Interpersonal care was measured by questions modified from the Korean Standard Service Quality Index, which are grouped into 6 categories: basic services, extra services, reliability, courtesy, convenience, and tangibles. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to find out physician characteristics associated with the gap. All of the 6 interpersonal care categories showed lower performance than perceived importance. The respondents tended to have a worse performance than perceived importance as the number of patients per outpatient care session ($\beta$=-0.0204, p<0.05) and the need for customer satisfaction education increase ($\beta$=-0.2226, p<0.05). Female physicians ($\beta$=0.2336, p<0.05) and those with higher job satisfaction($\beta$=0.0096, p<0.05) showed a better performance than perception. Overall, it appears that lower quality of interpersonal care was delivered to patients than the desired level considered by the responding physicians. Based on the regression analysis results, it is suggested that reducing patient volume per session, fulfilling education need for customer satisfaction, and improving job satisfaction may contribute to reduce the gap between physician's perceived importance and performance of interpersonal care.
