Factors affecting the choice of public, private or charity health care providers: A case of a developing country

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Given the importance of individuals’ behavioral intention to choose the health care providers, this study aimed to determine factors affecting the intention of the patients to choose public, private or charity health care providers.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted on a sample of 330 employees, as the potential patients, selected randomly. A reliable Persian version of Ferreira’s questionnaire was used (α = 0.806) for collecting data. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS₁₈ through Independent t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation coefficient, and multiple linear regression.

Results: The regression results indicated that factors influencing the patients’ intention to use the public (R² = 0.711), private (R² = 0.311), or charity (R² = 0.162) sectors were the patients’ attitudes, behavioral control, working in the Schools and Research Centers, as well as in the University headquarters, treaty employment, previous experience, gender (female), work experience of 16–25 years, having diploma and under diploma degrees, and the organizational position of Services, Technology, Engineering and others (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: According to the findings, making careful plan to strengthen the employees’ attitude and perceived behavioral control in the public sector, the use of confidence-building measures and strategies for cost control in the private sector and social marketing approach in the charity sector are recommended.

KEYWORDS:

• Health service providers
• theory of planned behavior
• employees’ intention
• public providers
• private providers

Acknowledgement

The present article was extracted from the thesis written by Mahnaz Javanbakht. The authors would like to thank all who cooperated with the researchers in gathering and analyzing the required data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Ramin Ravangard is an Associate Professor in Health Services Management.

Mrs. Mahnaz Javanbakht has MSc in Health Services Management.

Dr. Peivand Bastani is an Assistant Professor in Health Services Management.

Additional information

Funding

This article was financially supported by Shiraz University of Medical Sciences [grant number 95-01-07-12395].