Evaluation of health risk preventive behaviors and health travel satisfaction of health tourists in Turkey

This study aimed to reveal the effect of health tourists' health risk preventive behaviors on their satisfaction with their health travel. Health tourism is an increasingly widespread sector that has become an important source of income for many countries. Thanks to health tourism, people seeking healthcare services can compare doctors, treatment methods, prices or the quality of the services offered both in their home country and abroad, and choose the most appropriate service for them in terms of both price and quality. In this context, health tourism is seen as an important service export in the international arena. The sample consisted of international patients (diaspora Turks from Germany and the Netherlands) who had received medical health tourism services from international health tourism authorized healthcare institutions in Istanbul and who were reached through social media channels (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Websites, Blogs). The sample group consisted of 590 international medical tourists. A survey was used as the data collection method in the study. Accordingly, the developed survey form was applied online. According to the results obtained; The direct effect of health tourists' health risk-preventive behaviors on their satisfaction with health travel is highly significant and positive (p<0.001), and the standardized regression coefficient between health tourists' health risk-preventive behaviors and their satisfaction with health travel is 0.849. If health tourists' health risk-preventive behaviors increase by one unit, satisfaction with health travel will also increase by 0.849. Consequently, it was determined that health tourists' health risk-preventive behaviors have a statistically significant and positive effect on their satisfaction with health travel. Keywords: Health Tourism, Health Risk Preventive Behavior, Satisfaction with Health Travel