The Role of Patient Satisfaction And Service Quality in the Formation of Customers’ Purchase Intentions for Health Care Services

Abstract

Issues relating to the nature of the relationship between service quality and satisfaction are some the most important facing service marketers. This may be especially true for health service providers since evidence indicates that those firms providing higher levels of quality and patient satisfaction hold a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, while there have been recent advances in our conceptual understanding of these constructs, little has been added to our understanding of the nature of the relationship between these two constructs that can be of benefit to health care marketers. One finding of interest is that reported by Taylor and Baker (1994) who found that while satisfaction moderates the relationship between service quality and purchase intentions for three service industries, it does not do so for health care services. Thus, the purpose of the study reported here is to more fully investigate this finding specifically within a health services setting.