The role of psychographic characteristics as determinants of complaint behavior by elderly consumers of physician health care services.

The authors investigate the influence of various psychographic characteristics in distinguishing between those elderly patients who complain about dissatisfying experiences with health care providers and those who do not. Discriminant analysis results suggest that patients who are low in trust in their physicians and who are younger in terms of cognitive age are more likely to complain than are patients who are high in trust and older in terms of cognitive age. In light of these findings, the authors propose a number of managerially-relevant courses of action for health care providers.