The effects of hospital servicescape on perceived healthcare quality and patient recovery expectations

Hospitals have been utilizing differentiation and service focus strategies as a result of increasing competition among health services providers. This need for differentiation and service focus has led to an increased investment to improve the physical infrastructure of hospitals. However, there is not much information about the impact of investments made in physical infrastructure on patients' perceptions of health services quality and recovery expectations. This research aims to determine the dimensions of hospital servicescape (physical environment) based on the perceptions of the patients and to examine the relationships between hospital servicescape and patients' perceptions of healthcare quality and recovery expectations. It is also intended to provide insights to health organisations and hospitals about the patient-centered physical designs. Creating patient-centered health designs, and improving physical conditions can be an important step in resolving the health problems of the country. A model was created to achieve these aims, the data were collected from the patients by using convenience sampling, via face to face questionnaires at the hospitals. Structural Equation Modeling was used to analyze the relationships between variables offered in the research model. According to the analysis, the servicescape perceptions of the respondents about the hospitals in which they received treatment consisted of five sub-factors (Ambient conditions, Spatial layout, Functionality/Equipment, Signs, symbols and artifacts, and Cleanliness). It has also been found that the patients' hospital servicescape perceptions have strong and positive effects on the patients' perceptions on healthcare quality. The hospital servicescape and perception of healthcare quality latent variables did not have a statistically significant effect on the recovery expectations of patients; though the effect of these latent variables on the recovery expectation of patients was very low.