A research on the relationship between trust in physician and hospital and hospital preference

The aim of the study is to determine the relationship between the level of trust in the physician and the hospital of the patients who apply to health institutions and the factors that are effective in choosing the hospital. In order to collect data in the study, data were collected from patients who came to two hospitals, one public and one private, to receive outpatient services. In the study, convenience sampling method was used as sample selection and data were obtained from 436 participants. A questionnaire consisting of four parts was used to collect data. The sections of the survey are as follows; socio-demographic information form, two parts of the patient's trust in the physician and hospital scale as trust in the physician and trust in the hospital, and finally the scale of factors affecting the choice of hospital. Before the data analysis, reliability analyze of the scales were made. SPSS 25 package program was used in the analysis of the data. Since the data did not show normal distribution, Independent Sampels test and Spearman Correlation test were applied from non-parametric methods. As a result of the analysis, a statistically significant relationship was found between physician trust and hospital preference's staff attitude and behavior dimension. A statistically significant relationship was found between hospital trust and hospital preference's consumer cost dimension. In addition, a moderately positive relationship was found between trust in the hospital and trust in the physician. The results of the socio-demographic differences analysis are as follows; significant differences were found with the hospital type variable of trust in the physician; gender variable of trust in the hospital; and the four dimensions of hospital preference were found with gender, marital status, age, hospital type and occupation variables in general. In the light of the findings, it was concluded that hospitals should pay attention to the personnel attitude and behavior dimension of the hospital preference in order to increase the trust in the physician and the consumer cost dimension of the hospital preference to increase the trust in the hospital. In addition, the most effective factor in choosing a hospital is the quality of service. As a result, while there were significant relations between trust in the physician and hospital and some factors of hospital preference, significant relations were not found with some of the factors.