Antecedents and Outcomes of Patient Satisfaction

Abstract

Purpose: Patient satisfaction plays a critical role in determining the competitiveness of health-care organizations. This study is aimed to develop and test a comprehensive conceptual model of the antecedents and outcomes of patient satisfaction, to establish the relationships between the variables. Methodology: The relationships between them were tested using partial least squares-structural equation modeling technique (PLS-SEM), utilizing a sample of 348 patients from dialysis centers in the state of Goa in India. Results: Patient satisfaction was found to mediate the relationship between antecedent-service quality and outcomes – trust, loyalty, and word of mouth. Similarly, trust was found to mediate the impact of patient satisfaction on loyalty and word of mouth. Research Implications: The study integrates the scattered literature on the topic, providing a holistic model with novel insights, which will help researchers in understanding and analyzing the impact of variables influencing as well as influenced by patient satisfaction. Practical Implications: The study determines and shows the importance of antecedents such as trust in health care. While health-care organizations should improve patient satisfaction, they should not stop only at patient satisfaction but rather further work on building trust. Trust, in turn, helps to build patient loyalty and positive word of mouth. The model shows how patient satisfaction and trust play key roles in influencing loyalty and word of mouth, which are important for competitive reasons. Thus, a complete understanding of the findings will assist practitioners in improving the competitiveness of their organizations. Originality/Value: A lot of research exists on the antecedents of patient satisfaction, namely service quality, and outcomes of satisfaction, namely loyalty and word of mouth. On the other hand, there exists limited research on constructs such as trust and its impact on loyalty and word mouth. This research combines both to develop a comprehensive model and tested it using PLS-SEM, providing important findings. The testing of model in dialysis centers adds a novel feature, since not much research is done in this setting. Conclusion: A comprehensive model linking the antecedents and outcomes of patient satisfaction was developed and tested in the dialysis departments of 8 hospitals and all the 9 hypotheses developed were supported.