Service Quality, Customer (Patient) Satisfaction and Behavioural Intention in Health Care Services: Exploring the Indian Perspective

Abstract

As the health care sector in India gets more competitive, health care practitioners and academic researchers are increasingly interested in exploring how patients perceive the quality before building up their satisfaction levels and generating behavioural intentions. Hospitals today are increasingly realizing the need to focus on service quality as a measure to improve their competitive position. Customer based determinants and perceptions of service quality, therefore, play an important role when choosing a hospital. In this paper, we examine and measure the quality of services and its outcomes (patient’s satisfaction and behavioural intentions) provided by hospitals. In this regard, a review of literature on measuring service quality, patient satisfaction and behavioural intentions in health care scenario has been considered to investigate the direct influence of service quality on behavioural intentions and the mediating role of customer satisfaction on influencing behavioural intentions. The study focuses only on health care services offered by hospitals. Till today, few studies in the developing nations were conducted to understand the types of relationship that exists between three key constructs—service quality, patient satisfaction and behavioural intentions. Majority of the studies have been done in the developed country context, which cannot be generalized in the Indian context. It has been contended that constructs of service quality that are developed in one culture might not be applicable in another culture. This study analyses the suitability of service quality to improve customer satisfaction and in the process positively impacting behavioural intentions in the health care setting.