Introduction: Additional to improving health and ensuring equitable financing that are two predominant goals
of health system, another important goal of health systems is responsiveness to people’s non-medical
expectations. In this study we try to assess the health system’s responsiveness in academic and non-academic
hospitals.
Methods: This is a cross sectional study done in summer 2014 in Mashhad-Iran, we surveyed a total number of
403 inpatients by multi-stage sampling. A questionnaire of responsiveness and a check list included demographic
variables and characteristics of hospitalization were completed by trained interviewers. Scales from 0 to 10 was
applied for each questionnaire at the end of assessment of questions.
Result: 403 participants Took part in this survey from 10 hospitals (6 academic and 4 non-academic hospitals).
124(30.8%) were from non-academic and 279(69.2%) from academic hospitals 140(34.7%) of patients were
male and 263(65.3%) were female. mean age of participants was 36.77 ± 1.52 years. The mean total score of
responsiveness was 7.12±1.31 in academic hospitals and 6.99±1.38 in non-academic hospitals, considered as
good performance. There was no significant difference between total scores of these two groups (p=0.38). Health
care responsiveness score was higher in private (8.35±0.95) than other kinds of hospitals and charity hospitals
had the lowest score (5.98±0.51).
Conclusion: Responsiveness of health care system at hospitals is an important parameter for measuring patients’
perception of quality of health care. Although responsiveness rate of our hospitals are good but some
components such as: choice health care providers, respect to autonomy of individuals, clear communication and
confidentiality received lower responsiveness scores, therefore they require more attention and these domains
can be the more significant choices that should be considered while designing improvement programs.