Hospital patients' responses to dissatisfaction

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Patient Experience Research
• Sociology of Health

Background:

• Patient dissatisfaction with hospital services is a critical issue impacting healthcare quality.
• Understanding patient complaint behavior is essential for service improvement.
• Previous research has explored factors influencing patient responses, but the interplay of perceived severity and social power requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze hospitalized patients' responses to service dissatisfaction.
• To determine the influence of perceived service failure severity and social power on complaint intensity.
• To investigate the relationship between structural power, personal resources, self-perception of power, and patient complaint behavior.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of survey data from 384 hospitalized patients reporting service problems.
• Construction of three binary dependent variables for complaint intensity (passive/active, non-directed/directed, non-formal/formal).
• Multivariate analyses using perceived problem severity, satisfaction levels, and various social power measures as independent variables.

Main Results:

• Perceived severity of the service failure was the strongest predictor of complaint intensity.
• Personal and situational social power resources, along with self-perception of power, significantly contributed to explaining response intensity.
• Structural power discrepancies did not show a significant relationship with the intensity of patients' dissatisfaction responses.

Conclusions:

• The severity of a hospital service failure is paramount in determining how intensely patients complain.
• Patients' individual social power resources and their self-perceived power play a crucial role in their complaint behavior.
• Organizational power structures do not appear to influence the intensity of patient complaints regarding service dissatisfaction.