Antecedents of Patient Satisfaction and Patient Loyalty in the Medical Tourism sector in Kerala, India.

Purpose- The present study aims to validate the measurement scale for assessing the antecedents of Patient Satisfaction and Patient Loyalty in the Medical Tourism sector in Kerala, India.

Design/ Methodology/ approach: The paper includes item development, data collection reliability and validity tests and validation of measurement model using Structural Equation Modelling with Partial Least Squares Path Modelling. For Service Quality, the SERVPERF Model suggested by (Cronin & Taylor, 1992) was adopted. For other constructs, variables were identified through extant literature review and Focus Group Discussions.

Findings:  In order to validate the measurement model, some variables are removed from the proposed model that has lower path loading than the threshold limit 0.4. Then the validated measurement model that indicates the relationship between the latent variables and the manifest variables is brought out through this analysis. This study gives a validated scale that carries 4 antecedents of Patient Satisfaction such as Treatment Quality (TQ), Service Quality (SQ), Cost Attractiveness (CA) and Destination Image(DI).

Practical implications: The Government in the destination country and other stakeholders in the medical tourism sector are very much interested in understanding the information regarding medical tourism. It gives them the power to sustain in this flourishing tourism sector. Present study provides insights to make medical tourists more satisfied and to generate patient loyalty towards service provider. Hence, the service providers can understand the antecedents of patient satisfaction in the medical tourism sector and can formulate policies accordingly.

 Originality/ Value:  The study brings new insights to the existing body of knowledge by developing a measurement scale for assessing antecedents of Patient Satisfaction and Patient Loyalty in the Medical Tourism sector in Kerala, India.