دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی رتبه بندی خدمات بهداشتی و درمانی: رضایت مصرف کننده و عملکرد سیستم بهداشتی - تیلور و فرانسیس 2018

ABSTRACT

The complex healthcare services and the consumer’s lack of technical knowledge to assess them engender a debate over using consumer satisfaction ratings as a quality-of-care marker. This paper aims firstly to investigate the effect of sociodemographic, socio-economic and spatial characteristics on the perception of quality of healthcare and secondly to evaluate the relationship between consumer satisfaction and health system performance. Reporting a Eurobarometer survey and the scores of the Euro Health Consumer Index, the finding is that some sociodemographic groups are more likely to get unsatisfied with healthcare services than others (e.g. women, those over 24 years old, those who self-define themselves as working class). Moreover, a strong relationship is revealed between consumer satisfaction and health system performance. The higher the performance of a health system, the higher the propensity to have consumers with positive perception of the healthcare services (satisfied consumers). The implications of the findings are then discussed.

Conclusions

The aim of this paper was to investigate the effect of socio-demographic, socio-economic and spatial characteristics on the perception of quality of healthcare and secondly to evaluate the relationship between consumer satisfaction and health system performance. Previous findings in the literature emphasise a positive relationship between healthcare service quality and customer satisfaction (although the directionality of this link is still unclear) as well as a positive influence of socio-demographic and socio-economic status among EU nationals upon customer satisfaction. Based on their findings in this research, we start from the assumption that the likelihood of a positive perception of the healthcare services is higher in health systems with high performance levels.

A general evaluation of the results shows that 62% of EU citizens have a positive perception of healthcare system, being satisfied with the quality of healthcare services in their countries. This reveals that more than 1 in 3 EU citizens are unsatisfied with healthcare services. Also, the study showed that some socio-demographic groups are more likely to have a negative perception of the healthcare services. Not only are women significantly more likely to get unsatisfied with healthcare services but so too are individuals over 24 years old when compared to those under 25 years old. In addition, those who self-define themselves as working class are significantly more likely to get unsatisfied with healthcare services. However, no significant relationship is found between consumer satisfaction and the household size. Also, socio-economic variables have a positive influence on consumer satisfaction. Managers and students are significantly less likely to get unsatisfied with healthcare services and those who have difficulties paying the household bills most of the time are significantly more likely to have a negative perception of the healthcare services than those having such difficulties more seldom. When analysing spatial characteristics, the study revealed that those living in the more affluent EU region of the Western Europe are significantly less likely to get unsatisfied with healthcare services. Also, it has been revealed that consumers living in Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Malta or Netherlands have a significantly lower propensity to get unsatisfied with healthcare services, while those living in Greece, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria or Latvia have a significantly higher propensity to get unsatisfied with healthcare services.