The evaluation of the quality of a service is the critical assessment of the degree to which the service, or its component, provides customers’ satisfaction. Monitoring customer satisfaction is an important and useful quality improvement tool for clinical laboratories and health care organizations. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the satisfaction level with laboratory services among attending physicians and to identify factors associated with satisfaction and priorities for quality improvement. A cross-sectional study was conducted at the University Hospital of Kinshasa. Data were collected through a reliable and valid interviewer-administered questionnaire and analyzed by using SPSS version 21. The correlation between associated factors and customer satisfaction was analyzed using the chi-square test and multivariate regression analysis. The Importance-Performance Analysis was the determinant of improvement priority. The overall level of customers’ satisfaction toward clinical laboratory services in this study was 45.2% with a response rate of 330 (100%). Gender (ORadj = 1.75, 95% CI 1.06, 2.91), Department (ORadj = 3.09, 95% CI 1.50, 6.37) and academic title (ORadj = 6.85, 95% CI 3.51, 8.81) were found to have a statistically significant association with the overall satisfaction. Results accuracy (I = 0.944, P = 4.7), laboratory turnaround time (I = 0.932, P = 4.8), and availability of all the tests requested by physicians (I = 0.917, P = 4.9) were the most important opportunities for quality improvement. The overall level of customers’ satisfaction with laboratory services was low. Thus, the laboratory management must establish preventive and corrective measures to improve the results’ accuracy, reduce the laboratory turnaround time, and ensure the availability of all the tests requested by physicians. Keywords: Customers satisfaction, clinical laboratory, services’ quality, continuous improvement, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Background: In clinical laboratory, monitoring customers’ satisfaction is an important indicator of the quality management system and required by laboratory quality standards, such as ISO 15189: 2012 and ISO17025: 2017. However, there is no reliable and valid scale to measure clinical laboratory customers’ satisfaction in Democratic Republic of the Congo. In this article, an instrument for measuring customer satisfaction with clinical laboratory services is developed and validated.Methods: In order to develop a reliable and valid measurement tool, the general methodological approach recommended by Churchill was followed. Principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation was used to study the dimensionality of the construct. The developed questionnaire was checked for reliability and validity using exploratory and confirmatory analysis. The reliability checks were done using the internal consistency reliability by analyzing the Cronbach’s Alpha, composite reliability and Jöreskog Rhô values. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used to determine whether the hypothesis of the conceptual framework is acceptable in measuring customer satisfaction.Results: The PCA results showed a three-dimensionality of Customer Satisfaction. Cronbachs alpha coefficients (0.983, 0.981 and 0.981), Jöreskog Rhô (0.973, 0.970 and 0.967) and composite reliability values (0.95, 0.92 and 0.93) of the latent variables were greater than 0.9, which confirms the very high reliability of the model. Indicator loadings were all greater than the threshold of 0.7 or higher. Also, all the latent variables have average variance extracted (AVE) greater than 0.5, therefore, convergent validity has been achieved. Both the Maximum Shared Variance (0.195, 0.297 and 0.234) and the Average Shared Variance (0.805, 0.703 and 0.766) were lower than the AVE (0.897, 0.839 and 0.875) for all the constructs in the scale. Therefore, Discriminant validity has been achieved. Fit indices used to assess CFA and structural equation model were found to be at an acceptable level for the two-factor model where chi-square/df was 1.6, p=0.476, GFI = .99, AGFI= .99, SRMR= .069 , RMSEA= .000 , CFI= 1.00, NFI= .98, RFI= .98, IFI= .98, TLI= .98. Conclusion: The instrument demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties and thus the tool is fit for measuring customer satisfaction with laboratory services.