The benefits of using domain-specific scales in research

What is it about?

Despite the availability of several domain-specific instruments and their obvious drawbacks, it is interesting that the SERVQUAL scale is still used in healthcare settings. As researchers, we should aim to use the best instruments available in the literature. We believe using/modifying a generalizable scale is not a good approach when domain-specific alternatives are available. Instead of turning first to the SERVQUAL scale, we suggest that researchers use and test domain-specific instruments and develop new domain-specific alternatives. We believe that the study's outcomes are encouraging for further replication of the domain-specific models, certainly for outpatients in health care. We also believe that doing so can improve methods of measuring perceptions of healthcare patients.

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Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash

Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We note that using a generalized scale, such as SERVQUAL, may be inappropriate to measure perceived service quality in a hospital environment. Although previous studies have supported the multidimensional nature of the SERVQUAL scale in different industries, no effort has been made to compare the generalized SERVQUAL scale with a domain-specific one in a healthcare setting. This article, therefore, is an attempt to fill this void in the service quality literature. In addition, the main purpose of this study is to compare the factor structures of two different service quality scales in a healthcare setting.