The Role of Medical Word-of-Mouth on Sport Therapists: A Patient Psychological Perspectives

Abstract

In 21st century, more and more people see medical services of sport therapists as a promising industry due to global aging population and high biotechnology development. Hence, understanding medical word-of-mouth (WOM) process among patients in medical services of sport therapists could be interesting and useful. This study would find out the role of WOM on patients psychology when choosing the sport therapists, understand how patients look for sport therapists' information and which information source is important to them. As a pioneer, this study would like to improve medical WOM marketing of sport therapists. The authors designed a questionnaire based on how patients choosing sport therapists , including questions search importance of different information sources of sport therapists with medical service decision , and respondents' psychological demographics. We released 253 questionnaires of judo therapy clinics in Taiwan. More than half of the respondents see sport therapists due to others' recommendations (referral of family, friends and professionals）. Women are more likely to seek medical word-of-mouth information than men; and respondents who think choosing sport therapists are important tend to seek medical word-of-mouth information. Further, patients focus on "therapist's behavior", "therapist's skills", and "therapist's ethic".