How do People with Disabilities Evaluate the Quality of Social Services?

In this article we analyse the quality of social services from the perspective of people with disabilities and we analyse other social services quality studies that use the EQUASS system or the SERVQUAL model. We show the contrast between the high quality ratings reported by social workers and unmet expectations of the services' recipients. It is argued that the difference may be due to methodological errors in choosing one or another research method, and the phenomenon of social workers' conformism, which can be supported also by the peculiarities of Lithuania's long-term social policy. It is proposed that the SERWQUAL model be used for the study of the quality of social services, which is flexible with regards to the needs of service users. Triangulation of research methods was used to analyse the data. We show evaluation of the quality of social services according to the 5 dimensions of the SERWQUAL model: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance (certainty) and sensitivity (empathy). The quality evaluation of social services, according to the dimensions of the SERVQUAL model was calculated by adding positive and negative statements in each dimension. A higher number of negative statements was observed. The nature of social services evaluation was determined using the T-pair criterion statistical analysis. We found that the quality of social services is assessed negatively by persons with disabilities. This is the first study in Lithuania where the quality of social services was assessed from the point of view of persons with disabilities who are living either in marriage or partnership, without associating with any social services institution. The results of the study are in stark contrast to the results of previous studies by other authors. We believe that the opinion of social service recipients about the quality of social services must be researched independently from the internal self-assessment of the institution's work, because social service recipients may be affected by dependence on institutions.