highly personalized concept and perception when applied to health care services. Differences in expectations lead to differences in the perceived level of quality in health care services delivered even in a country such as the United States where the overall level of health care is acknowledged to be generally high. Thus, what care provider might consider to represent high quality care may not be viewed similarly by a patient.
Differences in perceptions of health care quality are significant in both industrial and newly industrialized economies because such differences affect both public confidence in and the functioning of health care systems. Cross cultural comparisons of such differences in perceptions are important because such comparisons provide insights into strategies that may be employed across cultures to improve health care quality, and because such comparisons identify strengths in one culture that may be applicable in other cultures.
This current study measured and compared perceptions of the q
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