Theories of Patient Satisfaction

Theories of persevering SatisfactionPatients joyFormulation of Patient satisfactionPascoe (1983) defined patient satisfaction as the health help recipientsreaction to salient aspects of the context, process, and result of their serviceexperiences (pp. 189). It consists of a cognitively based evaluation or pass judgment of directly-received services including structure, process, and outcomeof services and an affectively based response to the structure, process, andoutcome of services(pp. 189). In terms of the formulation of patientsatisfaction, Pascoe described the Discrepancy Theory and fulfillment Theory.The two theories were originated from job satisfaction research, the FulfillmentTheory assumed the magnitude of the outcomes received under particularcircumstance determine satisfaction and neglected any(prenominal)(prenominal) psychological evaluationof the outcomes. Discrepancy Theory has taken psychological evaluation ofoutcomes into consideration in satisfaction formulatio n and claimed thatdissatisfaction results if the actual outcomes were deviated from the subjects sign expectation. It was understood that the Discrepancy approaches that viewpatients prior expectations as determinants of satisfaction have be frequentlyapplied in many patient satisfaction researches, moreover what determines patientexpectations at the first place?Fox and Storms (1981) present two sets of intervening variables in satisfactionformulation, including Orientations Towards Care and Conditions of Care,mediated by patients loving and heathenish characteristics. Orientations TowardsCare refer to patients difference in their wants and expectation in a medicalencounter, as people would have different beliefs in the causes of illness and inthe socially-patterned responses to illness. Conditions of Care refer to thedifferent Theoretical approaches to care, Situation of care and Outcomes of caredelivered by the care providers. Patient satisfaction results if the OrientationsTow ards Care was congruent with the Conditions of Care. If the individualsOrientations Towards Care, including the perception and interpretation of care,can be affected by their broader social and cultural contexts, peoples with sharedcharacteristics may presented a socially-patterned responses in their satisfactionformulation accordingly. Suchman Edward Allen proposed that authenticsocio-cultural background factors leave alone predispose the individual towardaccepting or rejecting the approach of professional medicine and, hence,increase or decrease the possibility of conflict between patient andphysician(pp.558) 19which basically correlated patients socio-demographicfactors with satisfaction.Patient satisfaction and Social individuality theoryLinder-Pelz (1982) assumed a value-expectancy model in satisfactionformulation and defined patient satisfaction as a positive attitude a positiveevaluations of distinct dimension of health care, much(prenominal) as a single clinical visit,t he whole treatment process, particular health care setting or plan or the healthcare system in general (pp.578). Attitude was defined by Fishbein and Azjen(1975) as the general evaluation or feeling of favorableness toward the objectin promontory. Built on the view of the Social identity theory that attitudes aremoderated by environmental, individual, physical, psychological or sociologicalvariables (pp. 72), Jessie L. Tucker (2000) claimed that patient satisfaction shallbe moderated by socio-demographic attributes such as environmental,individual, physical, psychological and sociological characteristics (pp. 72). Inher later study, Jessie L .Tucker (2002) provided empirical support to patientsatisfaction and social identity theory. Patient satisfaction theory consideredpatient satisfaction as an attitude, and her results confirmed that patientsevaluation of access, communication, outcomes and quality were significantpredictors of satisfaction. Social identity theory argued that at titudes were neuteredand affected by demographic, situational, environmental, and psychologicalfactors, and her research findings indicated that patients specific characteristicssignificantly explain their satisfaction.Haslam et al. (1993) study of in-group favoritism and social identity models ofstereotype composition suggested that manifestations of favoritism are sensitive tocomparative and normative features of social context (pp. 97). The resultrevealed that a persons judgments will be impinged by his/her lodgermacro-social context and background knowledge, and the stereotype formulationwere not automatics but instead accustomed by the social context where meaningand attitudes towards different aspects were constructed.Social identity theory was outlined by Sociologists Henri Tajfel and John Turner(1979) and was defined as the individuals knowledge that he/she belongs tocertain social groups together with some emotional and value significance tohim/her of the group membershi p (pp.2) 17. The theory believed thatindividuals process a repertoire of self identities with individuatingcharacteristic at the individual(prenominal) extreme and social categorical characteristics at thesocial extreme. Depending on the social context, the personal identity mayprominent and individuals would perceive themselves as members of a socialgroup and adopt shared attitudes towards a particular aspect, and possiblysatisfaction towards care, or vice versa. To construct a social identity, the theoryproposed that individuals will first of all categorize and define themselves asmembers of a social category or assign themselves a social identity second, theyform or learn the uninspired norms of they category and third, they assign thesenorms to themselves and thus their behavior becomes more normative as theircategory membership (pp.15) 42. The categories under which individualsassign themselves at the first place will depends on a persons social contextssuch as life experien ce, backgrounds, culture and situation etc.Social identity theory was nearly related to the Self- categorisation theory,which was defined by Hogg and McGarty as the theoretical concept of SocialIdentify itself and concerns the ways collection of individuals comes to defineand feel themselves to be a social group and how does shared group membershipinfluence their behavior. Lorenzi-Cioldi and Doise claimed thatSelf-categorization theory led to accentuation of between-group differences andwithin-group similarities by the fact that different levels of categorization aresimultaneously used by group members to encode information pertaining to theirown group and to the other group (pp. 74) 20, and the role constraints ofmembers of inter-group give rise to a consistent mode of responding. Based onthe theoretical framework, it was assumed that patients with sharedsocio-demographic characteristics would categorize information they perceived(including experiences from a medical encounter) fo r subsequent satisfaction rate in a particular level and therefore presented a more or less homogenousrating with the care received.