Determinants of Consumer Satisfaction of Health Care in Ghana: Does Choice of Health Care Provider Matter?

Abstract

A modern health system which provides high quality care has trickle-down effect on the quality of life of the individual citizens and the overall economic development of the country. One method which is applicable to the measurement of quality of health care is consumers' ratings of the services provided. This paper investigated the overall level of satisfaction associated with the choice of a health care provider. Parents whose children (aged-under five) fell sick four weeks prior to the survey and had sought intervention within 2 days were asked their overall level of satisfaction with health care providers. Using the ordered logit model the study confirms the notion in Ghana and elsewhere that private health care is associated with higher levels of satisfaction or quality. Control variables that were found to be statistically significant were gender of the child, maternal age and education, distance and waiting time among other. To the best of our knowledge, no study has examined the effect of provider choice on overall satisfaction of health care in Ghana.