Perceived service quality, perceived value, overall satisfaction and happiness of outlook for long-term care institution residents.

Objective: To investigate the psychometric properties and relationships of perceived service quality, perceived value and overall satisfaction for residents with respect to their long-term care institutions.

Design: The five-point Likert scale questionnaire administered through facetoface interviews.

Setting: Fourteen long-term care institutions located in central and southern Taiwan stratified according to services and accommodation population.

Participants: One hundred and eighty long-term institutional care residents.

Main Outcome Measures: Perceived service quality (the SERVPERF model), perceived value and overall satisfaction (models based on the literature on perceived value and satisfaction).

Results: Student's t-test on institutional location shows a significant difference between overall satisfaction for central and southern institution long-term care recipients. The correlation test revealed that the higher a resident's level of education, the higher the scores for perceived value. The factor loading results of confirmation factor analysis show acceptable levels of reliability and index-of-model fits for perceived service, perceived value and overall satisfaction. In addition, the results suggest that an additional construct, a positive attitude (happiness of outlook) towards long-term care institutions, is also an important factor in residents' overall satisfaction.

Conclusion: The primary goal of long-term institutional care policy in Taiwan, as in other countries, is to provide residents with practical, cost-effective but high-quality care. On the basis of the results of in-depth interviews with long-term institutional care residents, this study suggests long-term care institutions arrange more family visit days to increase the accessibility and interaction of family and residents and thereby increase the happiness of outlook of the residents.