Customers’ perceptions on pharmaceutical regulatory service quality in Ethiopia

Introduction: Service quality is a unique and abstract concept that is difficult to define and measure. It is an overall customer judgment that results from the comparison between service expectations and perceptions. There is no information on customers’ perception of pharmaceutical regulatory service quality in Ethiopia. Hence, this study aimed to assess customers’ perception of the Ethiopian Food, Medicine and Healthcare Administration and Control Authority's pharmaceutical regulatory service quality. Materials and methods: Cross-sectional study design was conducted from March 30 to May 30, 2017. Using simple random sampling technique, 131 respondents were included in the study. Structured questionnaire adapted from the SERVQUAL model was used to collect the data. Paired sample t-test and descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Results: The study found out that pharmaceutical regulatory service quality was low. Negative service quality gaps were observed in the five service quality dimensions and overall service quality. The widest service quality gap was in reliability and the narrowest gap was in the tangibility and assurance dimensions. The perception and expectation mean scores were 1.897±0.61 and 3.433±0.559 respectively. Conclusions: Only 21.4% of the customers perceived that there was good service quality in the Authority while 78.6% claimed as poor. The study showed that there are service quality gaps in the pharmaceutical regulatory services. Hence, managers should look into the unmet needs and expectations or low perceptions of customers; and formulate effective strategies to ensure provision of better service quality.