| dc.description.abstract | Evaluating the quality of healthcare services in maternity clinics is a complex task that
involves multiple criteria, making it a typical multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM)
problem. This thesis introduces a Best-Worst MCDM method based on belief functions and
demonstrates its applications in the evaluation of maternity clinic services.
The proposed method, called the Evidential Best-Worst Method (EBWM), extends the
traditional Best-Worst Method (BWM) by incorporating the theory of belief functions to
handle uncertainty and imprecision more effectively. Unlike the traditional BWM, the
EBWM allows decision makers to express their preferences using linguistic terms and
confidence levels, which are then modeled using belief structures.
The methodology involves determining the linguistic terms and confidence levels,
identifying the key evaluation criteria for maternity clinic services, and determining the
importance weights of the criteria using the EBWM. The proposed approach is applied to
a case study evaluating the service quality of a maternity clinic. The results demonstrate
the effectiveness of the EBWM in capturing the decision makers' preferences and providing
a more robust and reliable assessment of the maternity clinic's service quality compared to
traditional MCDM methods.
The development and application of the EBWM contributes to the field of MCDM by
providing a novel approach that can handle the inherent uncertainties and vagueness in the
evaluation of complex healthcare services. The findings of this thesis have practical
implications for maternity clinic management, helping them to identify areas for
improvement and enhance the overall quality of service provided to expectant mothers | en_US |
