How Responsive Turkish Health Care System Is to Its Citizens: The Views of Hospital Managers

Abstract

With this paper it was tried to give a broad perspective about the responsiveness level of Turkish health care system, and how Turkish health care system meets the expectations of its citizens. For achieving the main purpose of this study a sample of hospital managers (n = 172) was selected, and the responsiveness questionnaire developed by WHO was administered. If the responsiveness level of Turkish health care system is measured on the basis of the Turkish hospital managers' views in the sample by using the weights reported in the World Health Report 2000, responsiveness level is calculated as 6.14, and Turkey's place should be 35 rather than 93 among 191 countries. The findings showed that Turkish health care system met confidentiality expectations of Turkish citizens better than other expectations for other aspects of responsiveness. In light of the main results of this study we conclude that the economic status, demographic structure, culture, and some other regional and country-specific factors should be taken into account by calculating and especially ranking the countries according to responsiveness level of their health care systems, and each country should carry out this kind of studies by using the views of their own key informants or preferably citizens, if possible.