Effect of healthcare workers’ personalities on health service quality: A case study of hospitals on the Malaysia-Indonesia border

Abstract

The personality of healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, and any employee who directly provide supportive services to a patient, is vital in health service quality, contributing to the hospital’s brand image. Malaysia has successfully built that brand image attracting many Indonesians to have health treatment in this country. This study aims to examine the effect of healthcare workers’ personalities on health service quality at Malaysian hospitals. The study adopted the Big Five Traits and SERVQUAL models to measure healthcare workers’ personalities and health service quality. One hundred respondents from the families in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, who had health treatment in Malaysia, were selected to respond to the statements based on a Likert scale. The regression model was employed in data analysis in which the healthcare worker’s personality was an independent variable, and health service quality was a dependent variable. The regression test results show that agreeableness and emotional stability positively and significantly influenced health service quality at the 5% level, with each coefficient of 0.332 and 0.701. Due to less varied responses, conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness to experience did not significantly influence health service quality. That was supported by the high average index of health workers’ personalities (4.14) and hospital services (4.27), indicating that the respondents agreed with healthcare workers’ excellent personalities and health service quality in Malaysia. Each indicator in healthcare workers’ personalities also significantly correlated with each indicator in health service quality. Acknowledgment The authors thank the Faculty of Economics and Business, Tanjungpura University, for funding this study.

Keywords

• business economics
• health treatment
• organizational performance
• personnel management
• psychology