Mahmut AKBOLAT, Mustafa AMARAT, Özgün ÜNAL, Elif Saba SÜTLÜ

BENEVOLENCE OR COMPETENCE WHICH IS MORE IMPORTANT FOR PATIENT LOYALTY?

In an increasingly competitive environment, health institutions and organizations are moving towards the concept of a loyal patient, whose importance is increasing and is thought to be of great benefit to the institutions, but patient loyalty has not been studied extensively through the physicians who make up the majority of the process. In addition, there are no studies in the literature on the helpfulness and competence of doctors who are thought to influence patient loyalty. For this reason, it was aimed to investigate the relationship between benevolence and competence of doctors and patient loyalty. The aim of this study is to measure the effect of doctor-benevolence behaviors and doctor competencies on patient loyalty. The sample of the study consisted of 207 people who received service from a public or private hospital within the last year. A questionnaire was used as a data collection tool. The questionnaire used consists of four parts and the first part consists of three questions aiming to measure socio-demographic characteristics. In the second and third sections, the scales developed by Nguyen (2010) aiming to measure the physicians' competencies and benevolence were used. In the last chapter, the patient loyalty scale developed by Nguyen and LeBlanc (2001) was used. As a result of the correlation analysis, there was a positively strong relationship between the proficiency levels of the doctors and the level of benevolence, whereas these two variables were positively related to patient loyalty. When the effect coefficients were examined, doctor benolovence (β = 0.404) affects patient loyalty more than doctor's competence (β = 0.185). As a result, although the effect of benevolence and competence on loyalty is different, it can be said that the variables are far from being substitutes. The patients will not only want to be treated by the doctors who show the benevolent behavior, but also the doctor’s competence.

Keywords:

Doctor benevolence, doctor’s competence, patient loyalty,

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