Current Health Service Experience as a Predictor of Patient Satisfaction: Evidence from Turkey

Abstract

This study scrutinizes effects of current health service experience on patient satisfaction. The investigation included 337 participants, who were actively receiving health services from the largest public hospitals’ clinics in Turkey. An examination of the experience’s and satisfaction’s statistical structures is made; therefore, exploratory factor and reliability analyses were applied. A structural equation modeling was used consecutively to determine the experience’s effects on satisfaction integratively. Instrument combinations were used for both ends distinctively for a peripheral approach. The tripartite experience is fully effective on satisfaction, which encompasses five elements. The experience has the strongest connection with satisfaction via Hospital Context’s Physical Aspects (HCPA) (R² = 0.88) and Attitude Of Doctor (AOD) (R² = 0.70). The weakest connection involves satisfaction from Attitudes Of Administrative Personnel (AOAP) (R² = 0.24). Two experience factors, initial contact (IC) and Awareness (AW), pose the greatest positive effects on HCPA (IC-HCPA, γ: 1.97, S.E.: 0.0058, t: 338.79; AW-HCPA, γ: 0.96, S.E.: 0.0054, t: 179.07) and AOD (IC-AOD, γ: 2.15, S.E.: 0.0057, t: 378.32; AW-AOD, γ: 1.08, S.E.: 0.0064, t: 167.92). Most of the effects is positive at factor level generally, with two exceptions: the effect of IC on AOAP (γ: - 0.32, S.E.: 0.0049, t: -65.73) and that of AW on AOAP (γ: - 0.26, S.E.: 0.0073, t: -35.88). Current health service experience is fully and supportively effective on patient satisfaction broadly, but the nature of this effect varies in terms of intensity and direction at factor level.