Concerning the actual scores obtained in this
survey, it should be noted that the relatively high
expectation scores are not uncommon among
Greek patients, whereas the gap scores obtained
were of similar magnitude to those obtained in
other Greek studies.31,32 The fact that older
respondents of the current survey tend to perceive
the quality of the services delivered as
higher than younger respondents do, especially
with regard to responsiveness, assurance and
empathy, could be attributed to several causes.
One is that older people may have had more
dealings with the public health sector and thus
have more examples to compare their experiences
with, whereas younger people, not having
experienced many health centre visits, may tend
to be more strict in their judgments. It would be
interesting to explore more deeply the question
of how previous experiences affect the perceived
quality of a particular health service