Removing the barriers in health care services: the importance of emotional satisfaction.

The competitive environment forces health care organizations to measure the quality and satisfaction as perceived by their health care consumers in order to determine both their financial and non-financial performance. The aim of this study was to examine the role of the consumers' emotional satisfaction in health care services. More exactly, the study investigated the role of emotional satisfaction in two directions: as a consequence of perceived functional quality and as a precursor of the consumers' behavioral intentions, such as loyalty and WOM, integrated into a conceptual model. The sample size was of 100 respondents, health care consumers of a private medical organization. The sampling method consisted of quota sampling, suggesting that each fifth individual received a questionnaire. The demographic profile of the health care consumers was determined in SPSS version 21 and the model was validated in SmartPls version 3, using the Structural Equation Modeling. Most of the respondents (51%) were male, from urban residential area (56%) and were aged between 28 and 37 years (40%). In terms of education, the vast majority had university degrees (47%), with their revenue between 2600-3000 RON (27%), married (51%) and who visited the doctor because of routine check-ups (47%). Moreover, the empirical model revealed that there are positive relationships between relationship quality and perceived quality, relationship quality and emotional satisfaction, perceived quality and loyalty, emotional satisfaction and loyalty as well as emotional quality and WOM.