Patient (customer) expectations in hospitals

The expectations of patient are one of the determining factors of healthcare service. The purpose of this study is to measure the Patients' Expectations, based on Patient's Rights. This study was done with Likert-Survey in Trabzon population. The analyses showed that the level of the expectations of the patient was high on the factor of receiving information and at an acceptable level on the other factors. Statistical meaningfulness was determined between age, sex, education, health insurance, and the income of the family and the expectations of the patients (p < 0.05). According to this study, the current legal regulations have higher standards than the expectations of the patients. The reason that the satisfaction of the patients high level is interpreted due to the fact that the level of the expectation is low. It is suggested that the educational and public awareness studies on the patients' rights must be done in order to increase the expectations of the patients. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.