Health care marketing: the theory of planned behavior applied to patients' choise between private and public providers in the portuguese health care system.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Master in Statistics and Information Management.

Purpose - The Portuguese health care system has been evolving throughout the last 35 years with two relevant facts: the public sector has progressed with improvement in all relevant OECD indicators; the private sector has been widened and reinforced. In this framework, it is important to understand how patient’s intention and behavior are built, so health care organizations in both sectors (public and private) can improve their health care provision (particularly in health care marketing), invest and develop those areas that might become sustainable competitive advantages. The most established theory of social psychology explaining human behavior will be applied: Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Within this conceptual approach, attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm, perceived behavior control, habit and past experience evaluation (satisfaction on the private and public sectors) will be analyzed in explaining the intention to go to the private sector. As the health care system is not homogeneous across the private and public sectors, five models will be tested in the areas that have been identified with distinct supplies: general practice, specialist consultation, emergency, ambulatory surgery and hospitalization.(...)