Why and How Patients Complain: Decoding Patterns of Patient Complaint Behaviour in Private and Public Hospitals

The spread of diseases underscores the significance of understanding the patient complaint behaviour in order to deliver a quick responsiveness in a very empathetic, reliable, and courteous manner that helps patient recovering from illness as soon as possible. Our study mainly examines patient complaint behaviour, including the propensity to complain, engage in negative word of mouth, switch healthcare providers, and seek third-party assistance, within private and public hospitals in Damascus, Syria. Convenience sampling method was used to select 446 patients from four hospitals (two private and two public) in the Syrian capital Damascus. Structural equation modelling (SEM) implemented to empirically test the proposed hypotheses and to examine the significance relationship between the constructs. our findings indicate that complaint behaviour among Syrian patients in public hospitals differs significantly from that observed in private hospitals. Besides, in the private healthcare sector, our empirical findings provide substantial evidence of a significant association between price consciousness and the propensity to voice complaints (β= 0.36, P<0.00). However, in the public healthcare sector, the relationship between price consciousness and the propensity to complain is not statistically significant (β= 0.33, P >0.05). The findings of this study will provide valuable insights for policymakers and hospital administrators in mitigating the effects of complaints, minimizing their adverse impact on the quality of care, and improving patients' capacity to express their discontent. To the authors' knowledge, this study represents a distinctive and unique contribution as it explores and compares patient complaint behaviour in public and private hospitals, specifically within the context of developing countries. It provides a valuable contribution by addressing an area that has not been extensively explored.