جغرافیای اجتماعی شهری (Sep 2023)
Structural Analysis of Medical Tourists' Feedback toward Medical Centers Behavior for Evaluating the Health Tourism Barriers in Kashan City
Abstract
Introduction: Health tourism as an economic development strategy in countries where medical tourists spend more than others to improve their health has increased the income and gross national product. In this regard, Kashan city, with its numerous medical centers with international licenses, has a high potential in developing medical tourism at the national and regional levels. Therefore, the present study has structural analyzed the feedback of health tourists regarding the behavior of medical centers in order to evaluate the obstacles of medical tourism in the hospitals of Kashan city.Data and Method: This research is an appelied study in terms of practical purpose and is a survey and analytical study in terms of method and type. The data collection tool is a researcher-made questionnaire with 5 indicators and 61 variables, which was completed by 308 medical tourists in Kashan medical centers after confirming validity and reliability with Cronbach's alpha 0.807. Data analysis was done through t-test, Tukey's and structural equation modeling.Results: Results showed that the usage of famous doctors with a t-statistic of 106.59 is the best factor in the reason for choosing a medical center. The variable of disease diagnosis and therapy methods with a t-statistic of 84.50 is the best factor in the satisfaction from services, and the variable of patient companions' access to comfort facilities with a t-statistic of 119.26 is the best factor in the satisfaction from facilities. The variable of reaching the health center through land routes with a t-statistic of 36.38 is the best factor in the access to hospital. Also, the indicators of the reasons for choosing center, satisfaction from services and awareness methods have the highest effect with factor loadings of 0.99, 0.94 and 0.7, respectively. In return, indicators of satisfaction from facilities and access methods have the lowest effect with factor loadings of 0.24 and 0.34 respectively.Conclusion: As a result, it indicates that the presence of experienced doctors with a brilliant treatment record plays a positive role in attracting medical tourists. Also, it can be stated that the comfort facilities of medical centers can play a role in their acceptability from the view point of health tourists as much as medical services. Therefore, for the development of medical tourism in Kashan city, strengthening the facilities of health tourism and transportation infrastructures in the region is the first priority of planning to remove obstacles.
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