Informational, Physical, and Psychological Privacy as Determinants of Patient Behaviour in Health Care

Abstract

This chapter presents and describes a theoretical framework explicating how three dimensions of privacy in healthcare (i.e. informational, physical, and psychological) influence patient behaviour through trust. Informational privacy is defined as the patients' perceptions of the degree of control over their personal information when their doctor collects, uses, disseminates, and stores their information. Physical privacy refers to the patients' perceptions of the degree of their physical inaccessibility to others. Psychological privacy is the patients' perceptions of the extent to which the physician allows them to participate in their healthcare decisions and maintains their personal and cultural values, such as inner thoughts, feelings, cultural beliefs, and religious practices. These types of privacy are especially important with respect to service quality and patient safety due to the recent advancements in information and telecommunication technologies and the availability of online medical information. As a result, patients have become more educated in various health issues, and many of them want to actively participate in their health decisions. The framework proposes that these privacy dimensions affect trust in a healthcare provider. Trust, in turn, has an effect on treatment compliance, positive word-of-mouth, and commitment to stay with the current service provider in the future. Based on the framework, recommendations for healthcare stakeholders are provided.