in this commentary, we establish a relationship between medical sociology and the study of medical tourism and cross-border healthcare by introducing ronald andersen’s behavioral model of healthcare use, and linking this model to the recent empirical study of kovacs et al. on patients travelling to hungary for orthopedic treatment. finally, we plead for more measurement in the field of patient ...

introduction: increase of environmental challenges inevitably changes our methods; challenges such as rapid change, diversity of workforce, globalization, evolution and transformation of business and family roles, lack of skills and emergence of service sector affect not only the organizational structure but also the nature and functional role of business. in response to these environmental cha...

Introduction. Consumers in the healthcare market typically face uncertainty regarding the doctor’s quality, and may rely on imperfect signals to infer quality measures such as accuracy of diagnosis, bedside manner, and operational factors such as service time, waiting time, and appointment availability. By enabling large-scale distribution of information from countless other consumers, those co...

Patients on certain waiting lists in the UK National Health Service (NHS) are now offered the choice of persevering with their home hospital or switching to another hospital where they will be treated on a guaranteed date. Such decisions require knowledge of performance. We used facilitated focus groups to investigate the views of patients and members of the public on publication of information...

The principle of respect for autonomy has shaped much of the bioethics' discourse over the last 50 years, and is now most commonly used in the meaning of respecting autonomous choice. This is probably related to the influential concept of informed consent, which originated in research ethics and was soon also applied to the field of clinical medicine. But while available choices in medical rese...

Background & aim: Several factors influence the choice of cesarean section and its increasing rate among pregnant women. It seems that sexual satisfaction after childbirth plays a pivotal role in the selection of delivery mode. This study aimed to describe the experiences of pregnant women regarding postnatal sexual concerns and delivery mode selection. Methods:This conventional qualitative con...

BACKGROUND Inadequate attention to management and institutional reforms is an important barrier to achieving universal health coverage. Skilled and motivated public health managers in adequate numbers are an important requirement to overcome this hurdle. However, what are the career choices of medical students? Are they interested in Community Medicine and Public Health? To document the career ...

BACKGROUND This paper explores the nature and reasoning for (dis)trust in Australian public and private hospitals. Patient trust increases uptake of, engagement with and optimal outcomes from healthcare services and is therefore central to health practice, policy and planning. METHODS A qualitative study in South Australia, including 36 in-depth interviews (18 from public and 18 from private ...