Involving mental health service users in evaluating service quality

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and use of a modified SERVQUAL research instrument for measuring the service quality of a leading mental health service provider from the perspective of their “customers”. The evaluation focused on the day‐care services provided by the voluntary organisation. In order to identify the appropriate dimensions of service quality, a series of focus group meetings were run with providers of the mental health day‐care service and also with users of the service. These were structured group meetings led by the research team addressing set questions. The meetings enabled the identification of six different dimensions of service quality neatly mapping onto the new P‐C‐P attributes model, which was developed after extensive research of existing models such as SERVQUAL. A questionnaire was then developed to assess the service quality of the service. The main outcome from the research was the development of a research instrument suitable for measuring the service quality of a mental health day‐care service. This instrument can also be adapted to assess the quality of any other service. Implications and limitations of the study are also discussed.