The impact of patient experience dimensions on hospitals reputation and electronic word-of-mouth

Abstract

Our objective was to identify the dimensions of the patient experience that directly influence a hospital’s reputation and indirectly impact electronic word-of-mouth communication carried out by patients. We collected data from 484 hospital users and analyzed the data using PLS-SEM. Our results show that paying attention to patient preferences and physical comfort, providing information and education, and treating patients’ families and friends well tend to have a significant impact on the hospital’s reputation. In turn, a hospital’s reputation may influence patients to perform electronic word-of-mouth about their experiences.

Keywords:

• Corporate reputation
• electronic word of mouth
• health marketing
• patient experience

Disclosure statement

The author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq/Brazil), project 307202/2021-6, by Foundation for Research Support of Espírito Santo (FAPES/Brazil), projects 2022-687ZR (644/2022), and 2022-31G9Q (1010/2022), by Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT/Portugal) through NECE (Núcleo de Estudos em Ciências Empresariais), project UID/GES/04630/2020, and by IFTS (Instituto Fucape de Tecnologias Sociais), project 2024-2027.